


Price of Omission

by PenchantPal



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 20:04:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenchantPal/pseuds/PenchantPal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Santana accidentally reveals a secret about Quinn to Rachel and Kurt in the midst of drunken, heartbroken ramblings. Rachel appears to hold no memory of the revelation by the time morning comes, but Santana and Kurt worry than an ill-timed Glee reunion may threaten to remind her. There, they face the ones that broke their hearts, and the girl whose secret they both fear revealing.</p>
<p>[Formerly titled "A Promise of Omission"]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Bad Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fanfiction was formerly known as "A Promise of Omission." It was originally intended to be much shorter than it was, but I've found myself enamored with this story, so I'm expanding on it a bit. I'm sorry for any confusion the title change might bring, but I feel the new title fits the expanded version better.

To say that this had all started off innocently enough would be a lie.

Santana had been having one of her "bad days."  That wasn't too rare of an occurrence by itself, or really even too big of a deal.  They would happen every few weeks – days when Santana would essentially lock herself in the apartment and drink herself into a stupor.  They were the only days when Dani was not to come around, as had been discovered when she had come by out of worry for her girlfriend, and Santana had reacted by... well...

Suffice to say, it didn't happen again.  Dani would just say "ah" now when she'd call the apartment and Rachel or Kurt would have to explain that it was one of _those_ days.  It was always a short but fierce argument between the two of them as to who would have be the one to tell Dani, but it usually evened out (Kurt being one of the few people who was rather evenly matched to debate with Rachel).

As it was, Dani still had no idea _why_ her girlfriend had to have those days without her, but she accepted it.  Santana would always try her best to make up for it in the following days, apologizing profusely even though it never stopped her from suddenly cutting off all contact on another day.  Rachel and Kurt knew of course, but they had been sworn not to tell a single soul.  The only thing they were to do is make sure Santana didn't seriously hurt herself or anyone else, and to keep her away from any form of long-distance communication no matter what; as long as they followed those rules, everything would turn out well – well enough, at least.

The problems arose after Kurt started having his own bad days.

Rachel was careful not to let anything slip about what had prompted Kurt's new intermittent behavior of complete avoidance.  She was too afraid that Dani would put the pieces together and realize why Santana and he were acting the same.  It hurt Rachel to do so, especially since she was friends with Dani and thought that she was lovely and great for Santana and many other things, but she determined it to be necessary.

However, it was now solely up to Rachel to serve as caretaker for both of them.  Whereas she and Kurt had used to tag-team Santana before, Kurt now found it too painful to be around her during those times, and Santana couldn't bear the reminder when she saw Kurt acting the same way.

So Rachel was left on her own to take care of both of her best friends at their lowest moments.

It stood to reason that she eventually started having her own bad days.

Eventually, all of those days would coincide.

* * *

Bottles were littering the floor and furniture.  The customary blare of music pervaded the apartment.  Santana and Kurt, alternating between phases of crying and yelling, sat together on the couch, bodies too laden with alcohol to provide any poise for movement.

It was the same sight Rachel had come home to an hour ago, bags of groceries in hand.  The only difference was the addition of Rachel limply hanging over the edge of a chair with glossy eyes.

It had been inevitable.  She couldn't handle being the sole caretaker for her two best friends for so long without eventually needing to take comfort in the same vices as them.  Normally, she would try to keep that at a separate time, but seeing the state of the apartment as she had walked in had eliminated any fortitude she had at the moment.

They were all talking – as much as they could with their current clarity of mind at least.  It was more like ranting really, all punctuated with tangential declarations of love for the ones no longer with them.

That was the reason both Kurt and Santana were there, after all.  They never used names, but there was never the need.  They all knew who the girl Santana cried over was, just like how they all knew whose bowties it was that Kurt would lovingly describe.  They were their _persons_ , and they would never let go of them.  Rachel had her own, but talks of him were too depressing for all of them.

They were currently in the "support" phase of the event, where they would convince themselves that they were going to be "okay" and that everything would one day be "okay", for as much good as it did them.  This time was turning out slightly different, what with the current level of inebriation between all of them.

"I mean, I-I'm fucking _hot_!" Santana cried out, to which Kurt and Rachel nodded (Kurt fervently, Rachel a bit more dazed).  "Anyone would be lu-lu-lucky to get up in this!  I've got girls fucking lined up, you knows what I'm saying!?  But I wouldn't—I don't—I mean, Dani's so fucking—but I _could_ , you know!"

"You totally could!" Kurt agreed, still too fervent for any sober person to wholly believe.  Rachel gave a sound, obviously meant to be affirmative even if it didn't sound like much of anything.  Her status as a lightweight was proving itself tonight.

"I mean, I had _everyone_ willing to give me a shot!  Fuckin' _anyone_!  Bi, gay, even straight!  I got straight girls sexing me, that's how—how _mmm_ I am!"

"Mmm," Rachel agreed.

"I mean, even god damn Mary Margaret wanted—I mean, come on, if that ain't proff of shit, I don't know—"

"Wasn't Mary Margaret a hooser?" Kurt asked, a look of deep confusion on his face.

"Mary Magdalene.  Get it right, Hairspray—"

"But then who's Mary Marga—"

"I don't fuckin' know, why are you asking me!?"

"But you said—"

"I know I said it, but I meant fucking Quinn!  I mean, fucking Quinn.  I fucked Quinn, I mean—"

"Santana, honey, you've got to stop calling yourself mean.  You're not _that_ mean, come on—"

"Quinn's nice!" Rachel shouted at full volume.  She threw herself upwards off the side of the chair, resulting in her now being doubled-over in the seat and staring happily at a Santana that looked suspiciously like a lamp.  "Except when she's mean.  Then she's not nice."

"Yeah, she was nice in my _pants_ ," said a lamp sitting next to Kurt on the couch.  "When we were having _sex_.  Fuckin' Grade-A les, let me tell ya."

"I thought she was straight," Kurt noted, his expression of confusion increasing by the second.  "Wasn't that why you brought her up?"

"What?  No!" Santana said, bopping Kurt on the head ("My hair!") after having switched places with the lamp.  "Why the fuck would you think that!?"

"Quinn's nice!" Rachel shouted again.

"Weeeeeeeeeeeelllllllllllllllllll," Kurt said, drawling the word out over the course of a good ten seconds (or hours; Rachel wasn't sure).  "She did have sex with Fuck—I mean Puck.  Puck.  She fucked Puck—"

" _I_ fucked Fuck, you fucking fuck!  What the fuck is that supposed to mean!?  Am I not gay if I was Puck-fucked!?"

Kurt seemed to think this over for a minute as Sanlampa glared at him.

"Noooooooo...?"

"Quinn's nice!"

"I mean, no.  Nope," Kurt reaffirmed at the random Latino girl's soul-crushing, hell-freezing, Quinn-sexing glare.

"Damn straight!"

Rachel screamed, an ear-shattering sound.

Santana and Kurt glanced over at her.

"Quinn is _very_ nice, and you shouldn't talk about her not being nice," Rachel said to the wall as those two other people were looking at her or something.  "That's not nice, Humpez."

"She's not _that_ nice—" Kurt began, but was cut off by a loud... _noise_ from within Santana's throat.

"Humpez?  Fucking _Humpez_!?" Santana demanded, trying and failing to lunge off the couch and strangle Rachel (which would not be good for Rachel, Rachel noted).

"But why did you puck Quinn?" Kurt asked, feebly shaking his leg, Santana's limp form draped over his knee.

"'Cause she was, like, pucking hot and—"

"And why would _Quinn_ puck _you_?" Kurt asked, now looking confused enough that someone might think he was trying to unravel the secrets of the universe.

"Quinn's nice!" Rachel reminded the wall.

Also, the lamp was now crying again, so there was that.

* * *

"So I pucked the pucking fuck out of Puck—I mean, Mary Magdalaga— _Quinn_ ," Santana slurred out from the floor, several years later.  Or it might've been seconds— _hours_ , whatever.

Rachel mumbled something incoherent from the lumpy object she was laying on.

"And Fuck pucked you because..." the lumpy object said, trailing off as it forgot what it was and became a real boy again.

"It was Quck I pucked!" Suck shouted at Pinocchio.  "Listen, don't you want to qucking know why we had sex or not!?"

"Yes?" Pinuck said, just as Tuck Yorke was chanting "no" in the background.  She wasn't sure what Radiohuck song it was, since he seemed to do that in a lot of them.  Or it might've been just the one.  Or two.  There were songs and he said "no" in the songs, shut up.

Quinn liked Radiohead—Radio _huck_.  Rachel wondered if that was where Santana had picked it up.

"Wait, no," Kurt amended, shaking his head so fast that it looked like it was going to fly away and explode and turn into a star that she would name after herself and then she could point out to all her friends like headless-Kurt that that star up there was named after Quck—

"I want to know why Quinn fucked you?" he said, seeming to test out the words before nodding.  "I want to know why Quinn luckersucktucked you."

"It's the same thing," Santana said, waving a hand around aimlessly.

"What?"

"It's the same thing."

"What?"

"It's the same thing."

"What?"

"It's the same thing."

"What?"

"It's—I didn't _want_ her!" she cried out, suddenly sobbing again.

"What?"

"I wanted _her_ , not her!" Santana said like it explained everything (which it really would have to Rachel had she understood anything at that moment).  "I wanted _her_ , but I couldn't have _her_ , and her was there—"

"And Quinn wanted _her_ as well?" Kurt asked.  For some reason, his voice didn't seem as slurred as it was a second ago.  Rachel forced her eyes open to look at him, seeing his eyes desperately trying to focus.  It made her dizzy, though she flipped over on to her other side to look at Santana instead.  "'Cause you said it was the same thing.  A lot of times.  You said it a lot—"

"Her didn't want _her_ , her wanted her _her_ , but her couldn't have her _her_ ," Santana rambled.  Kurt's limbs were stiffening, trying to recover from their limp state as he straightened up, but Santana didn't seem to spare any notice.  "I wanted my _her_ , and her was blonde and strong and looked like _her_ , so I could think it was _her_ , you know?  And her wanted her _her_ , and I was short and brunette and—"

"Oh _shit_ ," Rachel heard Kurt gasp out.

"What—" Santana started, but then her mouth snapped shut with such force Rachel could hear it.  She could also see it, since she was looking directly at her, but it really was _that_ loud.  Very loud.  Rachel couldn't believe how loud it was.

The CD had ended.  They'd have to start another one.

"No," Santana whispered, shaking her head.  "No.  No, no, no—"

"Oh my _God_ , Santana—"

" _No_!" Santana screamed, leaping off the floor and stumbling over to Kurt.  She grabbed him by the shoulders, and stared at him with wild, panicked eyes.  "No, no, that wasn't—that was _not_ what I—"

" _Rachel_!?" Kurt asked in disbelief, suddenly sounding very lucid.  Rachel tried to say something, to ask what Kurt needed from her, but it looked like him and Santana were holding a grown-up talk, and Rachel had forgotten she was a grown-up for the moment.

"Kurt, _please_ , no.  J-Just forget about it, just— _Please_."  Santana was begging for some reason, and looking absolutely terrified to boot.  Rachel was never quite sure what that phrase meant, but it seemed like the right time to use it.  If that was the right phrase.  She wasn't sure about that either.

"But she—Quinn was always—Oh my _God_ , that's why, isn't it?  It's like with Dave—"

"Kurt, you can't!  You can't know!  We promised, we swore to each other we would never tell!" Santana sobbed.  She would always cry so much during her bad days.  "You _can't_."

Kurt seemed to be in a state of shock.  He wasn't saying anything (not really, just repeating "oh my god" under his breath), and his eyes were unfocused again.

Meanwhile, Santana was leaned in close to Kurt, so her tears were falling directly on Rachel's face.  It was somewhat uncomfortable, so she raised a hand up to rub them off her nose.

Her roommates suddenly stopped moving.

Both of their gazes were locked on to her face, she realized after a moment.  She looked between both of them, frowning at their horrified expressions.

"Do you want me to set a new CD?" she mumbled.

* * *

"So," Kurt said from behind her.  "How are you?"

Rachel blinked, slowly turning her head around to peer at her friend through her mostly closed eyelids.

"I'm not doing so great," she said.  A bit of understatement; the apartment was just _so_ bright.  The Sun obviously hated her today.

It was unfair too that her roommates both looked mostly fine – better than Rachel, at least.  The two of them were at the table, though Santana had jumped to her feet the second Rachel had come into the room.

"O-Oh?" he asked, suddenly very concerned.  He glanced over to his side where Santana was standing awkwardly, her body _screaming_ tension.  "Why would that be?"

She blinked again, though the gesture was muted with how little her eyes were open.  "Well, I have an exceedingly massive hangover, Kurt," she explained, not quite sure why his tone was so cautious, or why he now looked relieved.

"Oh.  Oh!  Yes, of course," he said, nodding and trading glances with Santana.  "Yes.  Lots of drinking last night, after all."

Rachel nodded and immediately winced at the pain that shocked through her head.  "Yes," she groused, gingerly leaning back against the couch.  "Lots of drinking.  We should really diminish our alcohol intake, you know.  It is incredibly hypocritical of me in particular considering my other health conscious hab—"

She groaned loudly, cutting herself off as she draped an arm over her eyes.  Kurt and Santana immediately snapped to attention.

"What?" Santana asked, voice shaky.  "What is it?"

Rachel feebly waved their concern off, flattering though it was.  "Nothing.  Just... talking too much.  My head doesn't like it very much," she said with a heavy pout.

Santana laughed.  It was awkward and high-pitched and incredibly forced, but Rachel was too focused on her own suffering to pay it any mind.

Kurt shot the Latino girl a look which shut her up.

"So, uh, yeah," Santana mumbled, shuffling in place.  "I'm gonna go, like, call Dani or whatever, so..."

Santana trailed off, leaving only the sound of her steps as she carefully waded through the mess that covered the floor of their apartment.

Ah, blissful quiet.  It gave Rachel a moment to relax and try to clear the pain from her head.  This was by far the worst hangover she had ever gone through in her entire life, though she luckily did not have the same level of experience with that as her friends.  Presumably this would be nothing to Santana, but really all Rachel wanted right then was peace and—

" _Fuck_!"

Rachel groaned.

"Santana!" Kurt hissed, bottles and cans rattling as he leapt up.  Loud profanities were erupting from Santana, the phone in her hand being flailed wildly about.

"That fucking—pucking—god damn—piece of shit—"

"What?  What is it!?" Kurt demanded as Rachel buried her head in a pillow.

"That fucker Puck is holding a party before the idiot ships off!"

"Wait, what?  Why are you so mad about—"

"Because it's a pucking _Glee_ reunion party!"

"What—Oh _God_."


	2. Arrivals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to everyone who has left kudos for this story since the previous chapter was posted.

"At least one of us is excited," Kurt muttered, glancing in the rearview mirror.

"Yeah," Santana said with no enthusiasm.  "Great."

"Well, I don't know _why_ neither of you are excited about this," Rachel piped up from the backseat.  "My exhortations have been very thorough, I thought!  No matter who does or does not attend, I am certain that it will ultimately be a very positive experience for everyone involved.  It's been so long since a big, happy reunion with everyone."

That was the reason Rachel was so excited for this, both of her roommates knew.  They had seen most of their old Glee friends not too long ago, but this time it was going to be _happy_ – as happy as a shipping-out party could be.

That was Rachel's _theory_.  Neither Kurt nor Santana were so sure it'd be as "happy" as she was expecting.  They had been trying to determine that the entire drive to Lima.

Now they were driving down the familiar streets of their backwater town, with the answer still eluding them.

"So do you know if _they_ are going to be there?" Kurt asked, hiding his voice from Rachel under the stream of Taylor Swift from the radio.

"No freakin' clue," Santana whispered back, glaring at the road as though she personally blamed it for every foot it allowed them to get closer to Puck's house.  "Don't think _you'll_ be so lucky to avoid your heartbreaker though."

Kurt sighed.  "No, I guess not.  That's the problem with hometowns: always have to deal with the ex's."

Santana gave him a sympathetic glance.  It would've shocked him beyond belief at one point, but not so much anymore after all their time living together.

"So you really haven't heard anything about either of them?" Santana asked.

Kurt gratefully accepted the change in subject, shaking his head.  "No.  I asked Mercedes, but she has no idea whether—" he glanced at the backseat where Rachel was humming along to the music, head swaying back and forth like a metronome, "—Quinn will be showing up or not."

Santana snorted.  "Oh yeah?  And here I thought they were _BFFs_ ," she said, blitheness covering the hurt.

An awkward silence filled the front of the car for a moment.  Kurt didn't offer any way to fill it, just waiting.

Eventually Santana relented, exhaling heavily.  "I know," she said quietly.  "She was there for her while I...  I know."  She wiped a hand over her face, turning to look out the window.  "You haven't heard anything about Br-Brittany, either?"

"No," he said simply, choosing not to comment on how she stuttered the name.  "All I do know is that Mercedes _is_ coming back, at least.  Mike and Matt are going to be there as well; Lauren too.  That also leaves all the people who are still at McKinley: Sam, Artie, Tina, and... Blaine.  And of course Puck, since it is his party," he added on, hastily pushing forward.  "So pretty much everybody, I suppose."

"But no clue if either of... _them_ will show."

"No."  He looked back in the rearview mirror and frowned.  "Rachel?"

Rachel's head snapped up from her phone, face suddenly much paler than it had been before.  "Y-Yes?"

Santana whipped around in her seat to look at Rachel, the panicked look back on her face as it had been every time she had thought that Rachel might possibly remember something from that drunken night.

"What?  What is it, Berry?"

Rachel cringed away.  "Well, um, you see—that is—I asked Puck to let me know—just to be safe—and I'm sure it'll turn out great—but it seems—I mean, it would appear— _Brittany's coming_!" she screeched, causing Kurt to jerk the wheel.

"Oh my God.  Oh my God!  Santana, are you okay?" Kurt asked, turning to examine his friend who was sitting stock-still in her seat.  "Honey, are you—"

"Pull over," she said, voice low.

Kurt knew better than to ask any further questions.  He quickly pulled over to the side of the road in front of some house, Santana jumping out of the car before it even stopped.  She walked over to the lawn and bent over at the waist.

Kurt winced and turned away.  He had never been good at dealing with vomit.

"Should we go... apologize to the owners?"

"Later," Kurt replied, humming over the sounds of retching.

"I think my fathers know the people who live here," Rachel mumbled in the backseat.

"Remind me to ask them for the phone number."

* * *

As much as neither of them wished to be, Kurt and Santana now stood in the kitchen of Noah Puckerman.  They were alone, listening to Rachel chatter Puck's ear off in the living room as they gazed wistfully at the wine coolers.

"As loathe though I am to admit it," Kurt began, eyes transfixed by the sheer amount of alcohol available, "I think Rachel might be right.  We _are_ becoming alcoholics, aren't we?"

"No.  Yes.  Fuck it, I don't care so long as I can be an alcoholic _tonight_ ," Santana grumbled.

Kurt slapped at her hand, which had been steadily inching across the countertop to the cooler handle for the past minute.  "No.  You—no, _we_ can't drink tonight – and thanks for ruining me as well, by the way – not when both of the loves of our lives are going to be here _and_ there's a chance that Quinn might show up as well.  We can't risk spilling _any_ of the stuff we know," he said, not at all perturbed by her scowl.

"I just need a _little_ , Hummel," she said, sounding suspiciously close to a whine.  "I'm not gonna get drunk off my ass, dios mio."

"Really?  Because I'm absolutely positive that I _would_ "get drunk off my ass" if I took even a sip.  I won't be able to stop myself.  You've been the alcoholic longer, so that's especially true for you."

"I am not an alcoholic!"

"That's exactly what an alcoholic would say!"

"I will knife you, Lady Lips," she growled.  "Don't think I won't.  I'll go Lima Heights—"

"Your father is a doctor!  _And_ your mother!  You did _not_ grow up in—"

"Hey!" Rachel called out, sticking her head through the doorway and peering suspiciously at them.  "What are you two doing in here?  Remember, abstinence is one of the most important steps to recovery—"

Santana released an incoherent roar and stomped out of the kitchen, shoving Rachel aside and leaving the two to themselves.

Rachel huffed and smoothed her black-and-white polka dot dress out.  She glanced over at Kurt with a sheepish grin.

"She's not doing so great, is she?" she asked, walking over.

"No, not at all."  He glared as she reached inside the wine cooler and pulled out two beers.  "Oh, so now who's the alcoholic?"

She arched an eyebrow at him.  Kurt felt a pang of discomfort at realizing exactly whom she had learned that gesture from, though the effect was greatly diminished with it being, well, Rachel.

"I'll have you know, Hummel, that these drinks are not for me.  Sam and Artie are just pulling up right now – along with their new girlfriends, I might add – and I intuited that they may perhaps desire refreshments, as is customary."

Kurt rolled his eyes, making his way over to the window as Rachel went back to wait with Puck and Santana in the living room.  They had (luckily) been the very first people to arrive, giving him and Santana more time to psych themselves up for the coming gauntlet of memories as they chatted with Puck.  Kurt had actually been considering taking off before anyone else got there, as ridiculously inefficient as that would have been considering they arrived relatively early and it was supposed to be an all-day event, but it appeared that that wasn't in the cards today.  They would have had to abandon Rachel to carry the plan out (since she never would have agreed), but that had been a sacrifice he was personally willing to make – or that he liked to _say_ he would have made.

He watched as he looked outside the window, trying to take note of all the people.  Sam and Artie were out talking on the lawn, along with a short, blonde girl who looked like a slightly less perfect Quinn Fabray, as well as that nurse girl that Sam was dating.  Mercedes had also arrived and was now getting out of her car, the two boys greeting her ecstatically.

He caught her eye through the window, smiling and waving his fingers at his old fedora-wearing friend, which she returned with gusto.  "Mercedes is here!" he called out.

"Halle-fucking-lujah," Santana sarcastically shouted back from the living room.  "Anyone with her?"

"I don't think so," he said, but was proven wrong as the doors to Mercedes' Jeep opened up.  "Wait, no.  There's someone, but I don't recognize her."

A girl with glasses walked out, her shaggy bob-cut of hair a reddish-brown color.  To his surprise, Sam and Artie immediately enveloped her with hugs, which the girl seemed to return with enthusiasm, if a little timidly.  Artie's girlfriend – Kitty, Kurt was pretty sure her name was – seemed to be staring at the girl in awe, and looked to be on the verge of passing out with the girl hugged her as well.

Something about the girl seemed familiar, Kurt knew – _very_ familiar, but he couldn't quite place his finger on it.  However, his attention was quickly diverted as someone else stepped out of the Jeep: someone with absurdly long legs, blonde hair, and the most dazzlingly open and happy smile he had ever seen—

He gulped.

"Santana!" he yelled, not taking his eyes off the girl for a second.  He heard the discussion in the other room die instantly.  "It's...  It's _her_."

Brittany was gifting every person gathered out on the lawn with her signature brand of bone-crushing hugs, even Kitty and the nurse girlfriend of Sam.  Her mouth was flapping so fast he couldn't make out any of the words she was saying, but he could guess it was standard Brittany dialogue going by the slightly confused looks on everyone else's faces.

He glanced over to the doorway as he heard footsteps, seeing Rachel standing there uneasily.

"Where's Santana?" he asked immediately as she joined him at the window.

"She went upstairs to call Dani," she said, sounding unsure as to what to think about that.  He empathized.  "God, it really is her, isn't it?  It's been so long since I saw—"

She stopped suddenly, eyes widening.

"Kurt!" she shrieked, spinning and hitting him on the shoulder.  _Hard_.

"Ow!" he cried, jumping back.  "What on Earth was that for, Rachel!?"

"You...!  Why didn't you tell me—" she sputtered angrily, hitting him again despite his outcry.  "It's _her_!"

"I know!" he shot back, glaring at the tiny but fierce diva as he tried to shield himself from her blows.  "I just _said_ —"

"No, you—Ugh!"

Finally stopping her onslaught against his poor shoulder, she spun around and ran out of the room as fast as he had ever seen her.  Shaking his head, he looked back outside the window as the sound of the front door being thrown open echoed through the house.

He watched as all the people on the lawn turned towards her as she strode forward purposefully, her tunnel vision in full-effect as she brushed past them with no regard.  He watched as the girl with the glasses and the reddish-brown hair laid eyes on the stomping diva, her face turning to apprehension for just the briefest moment before lighting up in the happiest, brightest grin as Rachel practically tackled her with the force of her hug, and Kurt's mind raced at a mile-a-minute trying to figure out just who this girl was—

But the deafening squeal that Rachel let loose as the other girl spun her around, both laughing, finally solved the puzzle.

It was a name that made his stomach drop.

_"QUINN!"_


	3. What I've Found Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to everyone who has left kudos for, commented on, and/or bookmarked this story since the previous chapter was posted.

"Love you too," Santana mumbled.  "I'll see you soon.  Bye."

She held the phone out in front of her to watch and wait for the call to be ended, but it already had been.

She scowled at herself, shoving the phone into the pocket of her jeans.  She had to let go, she reminded herself.  She had to stop holding on, stop making comparisons.

She took a deep breath, throwing herself back on the bed.  Puck's bed.  She recoiled at the thought, but couldn't bring herself to get up.

Brittany was downstairs, and that was completely fine.  It was okay.  _She_ was okay.  Everything was okay.  Dios mio, she was starting to sound like a self-help booklet or some shit.  Ugh.

It wasn't just Brittany, she knew.  Everyone was downstairs now, all of the old Gleeks (even freaking _Matt Rutherford_ ), chatting and reminiscing.  Meanwhile, there she was in _Noah Puckerman's bedroom_ , hiding from her ex.  How the mighty had fallen.  Coach Sylvester would be laughing in her face right now – with the megaphone, probably.  No, yeah, she would definitely use the megaphone.

She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes.  Fuck, now she was lying on Noah Puckerman's bed, fantasizing about Coach Sylvester.  This was pathetic.  This was Freshman-year Rachel Berry levels of pathetic.

A knock on the door startled her out of her thoughts.  She rose her head, willing her glare to pierce through the wood to whoever was standing on the other side.  Unless it was Brittany standing on the other side.  Oh God, was it Brittany?  What if it was Brittany?  What would she say?  What could she say now with the _possibility_ that it was Brittany?  How could she tell whoever it was to "fuck off" in a polite-enough manner that, if it _were_ Brittany, wouldn't serve as the worst fucking first impression for this reunion possible?

"Can you... _please_... go away?" she mumbled, screwing her eyes shut at just how much more unbelievably pathetic she had gotten.

There was a chuckle on the other side of the door.  Familiar, but she couldn't tell who it was.  She could tell it wasn't Brittany now, at least; Brittany's only laugh was full-bodied, loud and happy.  She would never _chuckle_.

"Okay, seriously, fuck off," she grumbled, rolling over on to her front.

"You were afraid I was Brittany, weren't you?"

Her eyes shot open.  She'd know that voice anywhere.  Husky, almost nasally really, but in a strangely sexy way.

She launched herself to her feet, a single stride taking her to the door which she flung open to reveal—

"What the _fuck_?"

"Nice to see you too," Quinn replied with a dry tone.

"Seriously, what the fuck?" she said, gaping at the girl she knew so well and yet evidently now... _didn't_.

The Quinn she knew had blonde hair: usually long, at least somewhat.  The Quinn she knew wore contacts basically 24/7; Santana had never even _seen_ her glasses, much less seen her wearing them.  The Quinn she knew wore sundresses and skirts and was fucking _girly_.

Santana had no idea who the Quinn standing in front of her was.

This Quinn was just wearing a plain white shirt with matching pants and a dark gray cardigan; it was an outfit that was just _worn_ without agonizing over or given thought to – worn because it was comfortable, not because it was stylish or meant to impress.

This Quinn was wearing glasses; thankfully not that "hipster-chic" shit with the bulky frames ( _that_ would have made Santana have a heart attack right then and there), but just plain, black... glasses.

This Quinn's hair was short and most definitely _not_ blonde – it was brown; a really weird shade of reddish-brown that left no doubt to it being 100% natural.  It was shaggy and unruly like an overgrown bush that managed to still look beautiful in just how wild and _free_ it was.

It hit Santana suddenly.  _That_ was what was different.  This was free.  This was Quinn without constraint or expectation.  This was...

This was fucking _Lucy_.

Santana felt herself smiling at the thought: a smile which grew, spreading across her face as she took in her friend like it was the first time.  In a way, it kind of was.

"You're starting to freak me out with the smiling, S," Quinn noted, one infuriating eyebrow raised.  It was a gesture that normally meant combat for the both of them, a challenge.  This time it was softer, more teasing – like she was having fun _with_ Santana, not at her expense.

Perhaps it was this that sparked Santana into action, making her release a bark of laughter.  "Seriously?  I'm the one freaking _you_ out?  Christ, Q, you look in a mirror recently?"

Q laughed.  Fucking _laughed_.

And then she went (and Santana swore she starting to hallucinate) and _hugged_ her.  She hugged Santana.  Jesus _Christ_.

And Santana hugged her right back.

"It's good to see you again, S," she said.

"Y-Yeah," Santana said, blinking back tears that she would later deny ever having existed.  "It's good to see you too, Q."

They stood there together for a minute, Santana's head resting against Quinn's shoulder as the blonde— _brunette_ (god damn, that would take getting used to) rubbed circles on her back.

Q eventually broke the silence.  "You've got to go see her, you know."

Santana snorted.  "Fuck, you still cut right to the chase, don't you?"

"You'd be pissed at me if I didn't."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"S, you need to go down there.  The longer you wait, the worse it'll be," Quinn said, her voice softer than Santana could ever remember hearing it directed towards her.

"Why?" Santana mumbled with no small degree of petulance.

Quinn chuckled.  "Still have the loaded questions, I see.  Well, there are a lot of reasons why, so many that I don't even know all of them.  But there is one reason I do know, and that is that for every second you spend up here, Brittany spends that second thinking you hate her."

Santana's head shot up, her eyes wild as she took in Quinn's sad smile.  "W-What?  No!  I don't—I could never—"

"Then go see her," Quinn told her, staring directly into her eyes.  "Now."

She pulled back and looked at Quinn; looked at her for just one more second.

One more second in which Santana would fear what would happen the first time she laid eyes on Brittany again.  One more second in which Brittany would worry that Santana hated her.  One more second in which they would be apart.  One more second in which they'd both suffer.

But it was one second that Quinn deserved.  One second that Santana needed to take to fully appreciate how Quinn had changed from the girl she was back in high school into the woman she was now.

One second to remember that Santana had betrayed this friend's trust in the only way she'd sworn not to.  One second to know that Santana would have to tell her she'd broken their promise, because she owed Quinn that much.

One second, and then she was running down the stairs.

* * *

_Pretty much everybody._   That's what Kurt had said, back in the car.  She hadn't really understood what he meant until just now.

Basically every person that she had ever seen in New Directions was packed into the confines of Puck's house: from Lauren Zizes, to Matt Rutherford (Santana still hadn't gotten over that; seriously, had anyone even heard him speak?), and even Sugar Motta.  Even the newbies were there, like that Ryder guy Santana was pretty damn sure was using a fake name, because _really_?  She noted Blaine there as well, looking distinctly anxious – and boy was _that_ a drama bomb waiting to happen, but really who was she to talk—

The thing was, Santana did not give a fuck about any of these people.  In this entire house there were three people which she cared about, and one or two others that she maybe liked.  But there was only one person there that she _loved_.

The sad thing was, Santana knew that this person was the _only_ person she truly loved, more than anybody else in the world.

It was a thought that filled her with guilt for reasons she knew fully well, but the guilt was brushed aside along with all the people that stood in her way.  People who got shoved aside and looked at her and thought "oh, that's the Santana Lopez bitch I've heard so much about," and people who stepped out of the way and looked at her and knew "there's Santana Lopez, the girl who's looking for her other half."  People who pointed at her and whispered, and people who pointed her towards the girl she was looking for without any prompt but the sight of her.

They pointed out the way, and then stepped aside as Santana found her.  _Her_.

Her with that dazzling, happy, open, free smile.  Her who was chatting to every person in the house like they were lifelong friends, speaking without restraint, without worry, and filling the very air around with joy.

Her whose presence, while all those things, was still just the tiniest bit dimmer than it should have been.  Her who Santana knew the slightest tell of sadness in, who had had the sadness instilled in her _by_ Santana.  And if Santana ever had any doubts to herself being the cause, when she had seen for herself all the times she had been in the past, they were wiped away when _she_ immediately felt Santana's presence and turned and caught her gaze and that dimness vanished and she was across the room in a heartbeat—

And Santana was wrapped up in a hug from the one and only person she would ever love in the entire world.

"I missed you."

And she was whole.


	4. Someday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to everyone who has left kudos for this story since the previous chapter was posted.

Rachel was swirling the wine around in her glass, back leaned against the wall of living room as she watched Santana and Brittany together on the couch.

"Status report?" Kurt asked, sidling up to her.

Rachel perked up, taking on a serious tone. "Indications appear positive. Subject Sierra has been conversing with Subject Bravo for the past 7 minutes and 52 seconds," she trilled off to Kurt's deadpan face. "There were no witnessed altercations during that time. Bystanders appear to be granting plentiful distance to the Subjects, so future altercations are not to be expected at this time."

Kurt stared at her for a moment longer before turning on his heel and walking away.

Rachel pouted.  _And that's what I get for trying to be helpful._

She huffed and turned back to the Subjects. The two of them were sitting (very) close together, talking quietly with beautiful smiles filling up their faces, eyes never leaving one another. Their fingers were knitted together between them, arms and shoulders pressed together. Yes, indications were  _very_  positive. So positive that Rachel was starting to feel bad.

There were a multitude of reasons for that, of course. For one thing, she was starting to feel like a voyeur, which was not something she had ever anticipated. For another thing, she couldn't get the thought of Dani out of her head as she watched Santana interact with Brittany; Dani who really was a lovely girl and deeply loved Santana... and would never compare to Brittany in Santana's eyes.

She felt bad for Dani, terribly so, but what Santana and Brittany had was something special. It was something pure and eternal – something true.

So perhaps that was another reason Rachel felt bad. Perhaps it was a twinge of envy for that love. For Santana to be reunited with her  _person_. For Kurt and Blaine to always have a chance of rebuilding their connection. All while Rachel was left alone.

She turned her head away and blinked back her tears as she heard someone else take residence beside her on the wall.

"It's okay," said a soft voice.

Rachel turned around, smiling before she even saw hazel eyes. "Quinn."

"Hey," Quinn said, a sympathetic gaze behind her glasses. "How are you doing?"

"I'm... fine," she said, smile faltering for a moment before brightening. "It's amazing to see you again, Quinn. You look so much... happier."

"Thanks," she said, running a hand through her shaggy auburn hair. "I feel happier."

"I'm glad." Remembering what she was doing, she turned her eyes back on Santana and Brittany. They were still just sitting there, talking.

"Status report?" Quinn asked.

"Indications appear pos—" Rachel stopped, flashing Quinn a sheepish grin. "Um... It looks like they're doing well."

Quinn rose an eyebrow. "I asked for a status report, sergeant," she said, keeping a serious expression even as a huge grin sprouted on Rachel's face. "When I ask for something, I expect my soldiers to deliver. Is that clear?"

Rachel covered her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle her smile and affect a serious demeanor. "Y-Yes, Ma'am," she got out, straightening up. "Indications appear positive. Subject Sierra has been conversing with Subject Bravo for the past 10 minutes and, um, 33 seconds. There were no witnessed altercations during that time..."

* * *

"So what have you been up to?" Rachel asked.

Quinn shrugged her shoulders, lifting her eyes up from her Kindle to meet Rachel's curious gaze. "This and that."

Rachel rolled her eyes. They were sitting out on some of the long poolside chairs, lost in the crowd of Glee guests who bustled about around them and partook in the water via diving and dunking. The two of them lied lazing in the shade, Rachel having insisted on digging out a sun umbrella to cover them. Or rather, she  _would_  have insisted, but Quinn had taken one look up at the sun and wordlessly retrieved it the second they stepped outside.

"Don't give me that," Rachel said. "I haven't seen you in so long! I've really missed you."

"I missed you too, Rachel," Quinn said, laying her eReader down on her lap. "A lot. I just haven't been living too interesting of a life. There isn't much to talk about."

"I find that hard to believe. One just has to look at you to know that there have evidently been huge changes made to your life. Come on!" She pouted, putting on her best puppy-dog eyes. "Pwease?"

Quinn barked out a laugh, shaking her head. "Fine, fine. Put that away before I overdose on cuteness."

"Yay!" Rachel cheered, clapping included.

Quinn reclined back in the chair, peering at Rachel over the top of her glasses. "So what would you like to know?" She held up a hand as Rachel opened her mouth. "And let's start off small, please."

Rachel huffed, but acquiesced nonetheless. "Well, in that case, how is Yale?"

"Good."

Rachel waited.

"Really good."

Rachel narrowed her eyes.

"It's fun."

"You're going to make me work for this, aren't you?"

Quinn's smirk answered that question. Rachel was tempted to stand up just so she could stomp her foot, but settled for crossing her arms. "Okay, but I'm warning you: you picked the wrong gal to mess with, Fabray."

""Gal"? "Fabray"? You've been spending way too much time around Santana."

"Don't change the subject! Alright fine, how's this: what have you been up to with your major? English, correct? How's that going?"

"It's going well."

Rachel was straight-up glaring by this point.

Quinn smirked and rolled her eyes, but finally surrendered. "It's fun enough. It's a lot of work, but my grades are good. I'm interning at a publishing company – proofreading and stuff like that. I also write for my college paper, even though calling it a "paper" is a huge misnomer since nobody reads the paper version anymore. And I actually wrote a short story that I got released as an eBook," she finished, gesturing towards the Kindle on her lap.

"Quinn, that's great! I want to see!" Rachel gushed, grabbing for the Kindle.

Quinn hastily held it out of her reach. "It-It's really not that great," she told a pouting Rachel. "Or even good. I had just written it down in my spare time and figured I'd release it for whatever little extra income, you know?"

"Quuiiinnn," Rachel whined, leaning over and ineffectually attempting to grab the eReader. "I still want to read it. It doesn't matter if it's good or not, though I find it hard to believe it would be anything but amazing – all that matters is that  _you_  wrote it!"

Quinn blushed, and Rachel took advantage of the temporary lull in vigilance to launch herself on to Quinn's chair.

"Rachel!" Quinn chided, but she couldn't help but laugh as she pulled away and held out the Kindle as far as she could manage while trying to push Rachel's wiggling form off of herself. "Stop! You're going to make me drop it!"

"You're going to make yourself drop it by not giving it to me!"

"Oh yeah, that's faultless logic right there."

"I'm glad you agree! Now give it here!"

Squealing laughter erupted from the mass of their struggling bodies, Rachel laid almost entirely across Quinn as they both stretched to their limits. A few curious glances were attracted from the newer Gleeks, but they were ignored by the two.

"Fine. Fine!" Rachel finally declared, falling limply on top of Quinn with heaving breaths. "You've forced my hand. I'll have to resort to drastic measures now!"

"Is that before or after you get off of me?"

"Either, or."

"...You're not going to tickle me or something, are you?"

"No. Why? Are you ticklish?"

"...No."

"I see."

"Okay, I'm ticklish. But please don't tickle me, Rachel."

"Ugh, fine. Plan D it is," she said, rummaging around in the pockets of her pencil skirt. "But I'm storing away that information for future use."

"Duly noted. What are you doing?"

"Well, if you're going to withhold your latest classic from me, then you leave me no choice but to purchase it for myself," she said, holding up her iPhone.

"Rachel!" Quinn shot up and tried to grab the phone out of her hand, but Rachel shifted her weight and pinned her to the chair. "Rachel, come on."

"You brought this on yourself, Fabray. Now just wait a moment while I download the Kindle app. By the by, is the book listed under your real name, or do you use a pen name? Because the latter may make it somewhat hard to find—"

"Pen name," Quinn immediately said.

"Real name it is," Rachel nodded.

"Rachel!"

Rachel ignored her protests, humming happily as she watched the progress bar on the app fill up.

"Rachel..." she growled, still struggling under the other girl's weight. "Rachel, come on."

"Fifty-percent done!" Rachel chimed.

There was a heavy sigh from Quinn, her struggles stopping. Rachel, thinking Quinn had resigned herself to letting Rachel read her book, turned her eyes away from her phone to look at her friend.

"Finally giving—" she began, but stopped as she took in Quinn's wide-eyed expression.

"Rachel," she pleaded, her eyes locked on to Rachel's. "Please."

"I—" Rachel paused, glancing at her phone as it beeped to signify her of the completed download. She swallowed, turning back to Quinn. "I just want to read your book, Quinn."

"I know. I know, and that means so much to me Rachel, really," she said, not taking her eyes off Rachel for a second. "But it's... It's a very personal story to me, and I—I don't want you to read it just yet. Someday, but not right now. Can you please respect that?"

Rachel glanced back at her phone, the Kindle app now sitting plainly on the home screen.

"Please, Rachel."

Rachel sighed, plopping her head down against Quinn's chest. "Okay," she mumbled against the collar of Quinn's shirt.

Quinn's entire body seemed to relax at the single word. "Thank you, Rachel. I swear I really do want you to read it someday – just not today. Okay?"

"Okay," she said. "The curiosity is going to be killing me, you know? I'm going to have to delete that Kindle app to try and cull the temptation to search for it."

Quinn chuckled, the movement of her chest comforting against Rachel. "You know you don't actually need the Kindle app, right? You can just search for it on Amazon."

Rachel groaned. "Now I can't use Amazon either!" she cried. " _And_  I can't check any news about great new novels or authors, and what about when the movie deal comes through? I'll have to ignore all the commercials and posters, and then I won't be able to watch TV or go to the theater anymore so I'll basically have to become a hermit—"

Quinn burst out laughing. "Do me a favor, Rach?"

She paused, thrown off of her tirade, and looked down at Quinn. "Yes?"

"Don't ever change."

Rachel just smiled.


	5. The Wake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to everyone who has left kudos for this story since the previous chapter was posted.

Kurt took a delicate sip from his champagne, Rachel and her accusations of alcoholism be damned. Santana was drinking a bottle of beer anyway, so it wasn't like he was the only alcoholic. If she was drinking, then he might as well join her.

He frowned. That wasn't exactly the best reasoning he had ever thought of. Oh well, it would do.

He glanced over at the corner of the room where a group of people were talking. One in particular stood out to him: his eyebrows carefully trimmed, and a red bowtie contrasting beautifully with his medium-blue dress shirt.

 _Yes,_  he thought as he made his way back to kitchen and poured himself another glass,  _it would do._

"Uh, Kurt?" said a voice to his side. "I didn't think  _you_  were the one drinking all my booze..."

"Shove it, Puckerman," he grumbled. "I am in  _desperate_  need of this."

Puck held up in his hands in appeal. "Alright, alright. If you say so. Can I ask why?"

"You can, but I think we both know it's a stupid question," he replied shortly.

"Eh, fair enough," Puck shrugged. "I'm starting to wonder who's gonna be your driver though. At the rate you and Santana are going, you're both gonna be plastered by the time you leave."

"We're not drinking  _that_  much."

Puck gave him a look.

"Okay, so maybe we are. Now stop doing that," he demanded.

"What?"

"That. That thing," he said, pointing at Puck's arched eyebrow. "Everybody keeps on doing on that. That's Quinn's thing, and every time I see somebody else do it, I think of  _her_  doing it, and I  _really_  don't want to think of that right now."

"Okay...?"

"Now you're doing it again," he pointed out.

"Yeah, I'm thinking I should scratch my last guess. You guys are going to be fucking  _hammered_  before the sun goes down."

"I am  _not_  an alcoholic," he said, wishing he sounded more firm than he did.

"Well, you're sure-as-hell looking like one tonight."

"Yes, well, maybe I need it tonight," he said, remembering Santana's words from earlier.

"I'm sorry about that, for what it's worth," Puck said.

He sounded like he felt genuinely bad about the whole thing, which made Kurt frown. "Oh Puck, it's not your fault," he said, shaking his head. "My drama. Don't let me ruin your party for you, alright?"

Puck nodded, but he still looked a bit down as he got himself another beer. Kurt desperately cast around for another subject in his head.

"You know, I had the biggest crush on you for a while, back in high school," he blurted out, then mentally slapped himself because  _really_?

But Puck just laughed. "No shit?"

"No shit," he confirmed, glad to see Puck's expression clearing up.

Puck chuckled. It was a testament to how much he had changed from the jock he was in high school that used to throw Kurt in the dumpsters that he didn't even feel the need to point out the obvious "sorry, but you're not my type" or say anything else of that nature. He just accepted it for the fun fact and compliment it was.

"Hey, the Buckeyes game is coming on soon," Puck said. "We were all thinking we'd watch it together. Old time's sake, you know?"

Kurt rose his eyes up from his drink to meet Puck's. There was an understanding there that he never would have expected back in high school, but one that was reflected in his own gaze nonetheless.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I think that would be good."

* * *

It wasn't a...  _quiet_  game, so much.

The room was filled with people after all, most of whom had played football themselves for large portions of their lives. There were cheers, loud talking, and various forms of discussion throughout. In fact, it was even more energetic than most other groups that Kurt had seen, especially considering it was just a random game, nothing important.

The football players weren't the only ones there, either. Despite it being a collection of Gleeks at the party, almost all of them were crowded into the room, filling it from wall to wall.

There was a reason for that, of course; the same reason the discussion would always be kept happy even in arguments about the play-calling or whatever it was (despite spending years surrounded by football and on the Cheerios, Kurt had never quite gotten down the terminology of the game), and the same reason that a wistfulness would sometimes enter the tones of the Glee veterans.

Rachel was sitting quietly in one of the armchairs, wordlessly reserved for her use. Her eyes were watery, but she was smiling. Kurt was sitting next to her on the arm rest, one arm draped around her shoulders. Quinn stood off to Rachel's side, close but not pressing, a regretful look on her face as she watched the TV. Santana and Brittany stood behind them, pinkies linked together with so much familiarity it hurt Kurt to look at.

All throughout the room, people offered silent comfort to one another. The veterans of Glee club stood closest to the screen, loosely clustered around Rachel with their significant others beside them. Kitty sat on Artie's lap as he playfully debated back-and-forth with Sam, who in turn was being supported by his girlfriend. Still, he also stood near Mercedes and Quinn, offering as much comfort as he could to the either of them. Mike, Matt, and Tina were nearby, the three friends wrapped up together in a hug. Puck sat next to Quinn, a forgotten beer held between his legs as he watched the TV with a sad smile.

Kurt's eyes moved automatically, seeking out the person he knew he was near. Like magnets, their gazes were drawn together.

Blaine offered him a smile, and Kurt returned it.

There was no need to define what it was that had brought them all into that room to watch that game; every person attending was fully aware.

It wasn't quiet. Happy wasn't the right word either. But there was a reason they were all there, and that was enough.

Together, they watched.

* * *

Eventually, people started to trickle out. The moment had passed.

Kurt was sitting out alone in a gazebo in the backyard, distanced from the pool. He idly examined the plain wooden fence which surrounded the large backyard, taking in every scratch and scrape.

"You know, I never took Puck for a gazebo-man," he noted as he glanced over to the pathway where Quinn stood.

She smiled slightly, but said nothing as she sat down in another rocking chair next to him. She wrapped her cardigan, a cozy-looking thing, around herself, peering at Kurt out of the corner of her eye.

"You've been avoiding me," she said.

He sighed. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Would you believe me if I said "it's complicated"?"

"Yes. But I would still want to know."

"Well, it's complicated," he said, earning an eye roll with a smile.

He held his glass of champagne out to her, but she shook her head. "No thank you; I don't drink."

He blinked, then shrugged. "Suit yourself. I should probably follow your example, honestly."

"Probably," she smirked. "I'm more worried about Santana than you, though."

He kept his expression carefully neutral as he took another sip of his champagne. Quinn had always been at expert at reading people; it was part of what had made her such a great actor when her other talents in Glee club were somewhat lacking. She could play off a person's every tell, always say the right thing in the right manner to lead  _them_  into what was needed for the scene.

It was also what made her so good at her position of school bully. While Santana had been more focused on the physical side of things, Quinn was always more prone to the psychological approach. She could dig out every insecurity and throw them directly in the victim's face.

Personally, he had never been on the receiving end of one of her attacks. It was always the football or hockey players who would focus on him. She was altogether rather apathetic to him, which he had always chalked up to her being friends with Santana and Brittany (who had really never fooled anybody who knew what to look for) – now though, he couldn't help but wonder if there were other, more personal reasons for her lack of disdain for him back then.

He wondered if this new Quinn would ever fall back on the same attacks she had back in high school. To someone who didn't know her, she might have appeared mousy. But there was still that analytical look to her eyes when they fell upon someone, like she was figuring out what made you tick in the span of a heartbeat.

He would have been wary of her for that fact alone if not for one thing: there was a comfortableness to her that he had never seen before. It wasn't the same cold confidence from when crowds had parted at her coming, but rather an ease of not caring if they did – of not needing the satisfaction of putting someone else down just to pull herself up.

"How's Rachel doing?" he asked as he examined her.

She sighed. "I don't know. She said she needed a minute."

He nodded. "It's still hard for her, sometimes. Most of the time, really."

"I can imagine," she said quietly.

"Can you?" he asked, then held up a hand. "No, don't answer that. I'm frustrated and anxious and I'm taking it out on you when you've done absolutely nothing wrong."

"But someone has?"

He bit his lip. "In... a manner of speaking."

"And that's why you've been avoiding me?"

"You know, this would be a whole lot easier if you weren't so smart," he said, mock glaring at her out of the corner of his eye.

She didn't smile, just held his gaze. "Kurt, I really wish you would tell me what's wrong."

He sighed and took another sip of his champagne. "You'd just be more upset. It's really not your fault, I promise. You're probably the most blameless party in all of this."

He could feel it now. He waited and let her analyze him, taking in every twitch and tensing of his muscle. It really was no surprise she had gotten into Yale with how much information she could take in at one time.

"Okay," she relented after a minute, not without reluctance. "Just tell me: does it affect Rachel?"

He breathed a sigh of relief. Taking in her frustrated expression, he decided to grant her some peace of mind. "It... involves Rachel, but she doesn't know about it."

She began nodding, then stopped abruptly.

She really was too smart for her own good. He had set out too many pieces of puzzle: given her natural paranoia and insecurities too much to work with – given her too much with which to paint the worst picture possible.

The  _only_  picture possible.

He realized his mistake a second too late, as her eyes widened to saucers and her face morphed into shock. She was on her feet before he even realized what was happening, her body shaking. "She told you?" she whispered, sounding so small and terrified.

He jumped to his feet, shaking his head fiercely. "Quinn, it's not—it's  _fine_ , you couldn't have known. You don't have to—"

"She told you," she said again, firmer, more certain. Her eyes were hardening, her face once again transforming. "What did she tell you? Everything?"

His body slumping in defeat was answer enough for her.

Her breathing was ragged now, harsh and uneven puffs of breath. She was staring at him, and Kurt suddenly knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of Quinn's fury.

"Tell me what happened," she hissed, advancing on him. " _Exactly_  what happened."

He drew back, collapsing into the chair behind him. "She—We were all drunk.  _Very_  drunk, and Santana was talking about Brittany, and she let it slip that you two had slept together once—"

Quinn growled, her hands clenching into fists at her side. He hurriedly pushed onward. "I—I didn't understand it, so I asked her why: why would she do that, why would  _you_  do that. I was drunk. So very, very drunk. And then she—she  _said_  why, and I was still sober enough to understand what she was saying, and Rachel was there—She doesn't remember!" he almost shouted at seeing Quinn's face contort into pure rage. "Rachel doesn't remember! She was too drunk, she was basically passed out! She doesn't remember anything about what happened!"

Seeing her calm down the tiniest bit, he continued. "She  _did_  pass out shortly after, so me and Santana took her to her room and laid her down, and then Santana went and took me aside and said that I couldn't say anything. She was  _begging_  me not to say anything, and I couldn't understand why it was that big of a deal, so then she... she..."

"She told you the rest," Quinn said. Her tone was cold now, all of the previous fire converted into pure ice.

He nodded shakily. "Quinn, she was  _so_  sorry. She was crying like you wouldn't believe, and she kept on begging me not to say anything – groveling, Quinn. You've got to understand how upset she was—"

But Quinn was already moving. He leapt to his feet and chased after her as she walked down the pathway back to the house with long, angry strides. He called after her, but she threw open the sliding backdoor without any regard.

He dashed inside after her, getting there just in time to see Quinn walk up to Santana and Brittany on the couch. Santana was instantly on her feet as she took in Quinn's expression, apology already on her lips, but she couldn't get anything out before Quinn grabbed her by the bicep, dragging her away from a Brittany confused and distraught because of Quinn's behavior, and  _threw_  her into the nearest empty room.

Kurt had one last glimpse of the stark terror on Santana's face before the door slammed shut behind them.


	6. Overflow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to everyone who has left kudos for, and/or commented on this story since the previous chapter was posted.

"You _bitch_!" Quinn snarled before the echo of the door slamming had even faded from the air.

"Q, I am _so_ sorry—"

"I _trusted_ you!  I fucking trusted you, after _everything_ , after all the times you abandoned me when I needed you, and _this_ is how you repay me?  By telling Kurt and fucking _Rachel_ the first time you get wasted!?"

"She doesn't—"

"Oh yeah, isn't that great, that Rachel doesn't remember a thing?  Kurt was telling me all about it.  I mean, that was your _plan_ , right?  You were thinking of that when you decided to run your mouth, _right_?  You decided you'd just throw it out there because you _knew_ Rachel wouldn't remember a thing in the morning?  Did you _know_ that from experience, from all the times you drank yourself into oblivion until you convince yourself to let some guy _fuck_ the gay out of you?"

Santana recoiled.  She knew who she was still dealing with now: prime bitch Quinn, riding high on top of a wave of fear and insecurity.  She had done this.  She had brought this Quinn out of hibernation after all these years and all the work Quinn had done to lock her away.

She knew the way to deal with this Quinn, the same way she had dealt with her back during their reign of McKinley High: confrontation.  Standing up to her and refusing to let her get a word in, shutting her down before she worked herself into that dark, violent place where the sheer venom she unleashed with every word was too much for any person to overcome.

There were two problems with attempting that now: for one, it was too late.  Quinn was already too far gone to be reasoned with.  She was operating purely based on spite and hurt and the need to _hurt back_ now.

The other problem was that _Santana_ couldn't work up the level of anger and heat to cut Quinn down, not when she knew that it _was_ her fault, knew that she _had_ fucked up, and that she had hurt Quinn once again after everything.

All she could do now was grit her teeth and wait for Quinn to run out of steam.

The problem was that out of all the people she had seen attempt it against Quinn, she couldn't remember a single time that it had worked.

"I'm sorry—" she began again, but was cut off by a harsh laugh from Quinn.

"Oh, you're sorry.  You're _sorry_.  Yeah, Kurt was telling me all about how _sorry_ you were that night, how much you were just _sobbing_ , and you were just so, so _sad_ and _sorry_ ," Quinn said, her voice a mocking twist on like she was talking to a baby.  "Should I be _sorry_ for you, Santana?  Tell me, should I be all so sympathetic about how _upset_ you were?"

Quinn was advancing on her now, getting as close as possible and bearing down on her, body burning with hostility.

"Of course that didn't stop you now, did it?" she hissed, causing Santana to flinch again from the sheer _hate_ in her words.  "After nearly telling _Rachel_ , you still didn't stop despite how _sorry_ you were. Tell me, how many of Kurt's questions did you hold out for?  How long did you last until all the answers just started pouring out?"

Quinn laughed, and it sounded more like a scream.  "And of course it had to be _Kurt_ , out of everybody.  Did it feel good airing it all out to him?  I bet you just felt the relief in _waves_ when you got to tell him all about what I was doing on the day I got the phone call about _his brother dying_.

"And I bet he was ecstatic to find that out that he had finally won _that_ argument with me.  Oh yeah, I finally saw his point about Karofsky, all right.  Tell me, because I really just want to be absolutely sure; he said you told him _everything_ , so that does that include you telling him that the reason Brittany and I couldn't come to memorial was because she was too busy looking after me while I was on fucking _suicide watch_?"

Santana didn't know when she had started crying.

" _Tell me_ ," Quinn repeated, her own voice choked by tears.  "I want to hear you _say it_."

But Santana couldn't.  Couldn't bring herself to say anything.  She just sobbed.

Quinn punched her.

Not a slap, but a full-on punch to the side of Santana's face, knocking her to the ground.

"You _BITCH_!" Quinn screamed, kicking Santana's huddled form on the ground.  "Tell me, should I call Dani up?  Tell her _your_ secret, since apparently it's a fucking free-for-all?  Tell her that every time you fuck her you imagine she's Brittany, tell her that you fuck her like you fucked me?

"God, I don't even know why I'm surprised!" she yelled, crouching down to grab the collar of Santana's shirt, pulling up her tear-stained and bruised face so she could look Quinn in the eye.  "This is what you _do_ after all – to all of your so-called _friends_.  Just look at fucking Brittany.  The love of your life, right?  And how much suffering did you put her through because of that?  How many times did you make her cry?  The second I try to be friends with you, _this_ happens!"

At Santana's slight shaking of her head, Quinn laughed again, the spiteful sound making Santana draw back.  "What?  What, you think we were friends _before_?  Was that back when you and Brittany were just trying to get away from me so you could fuck in a closet somewhere, or was that when you were laughing at me, covered in Slushee and four-months pregnant?

"We weren't _friends_.  We were never _friends_.  You stuck around me like a fucking kicked puppy, because I was the only one who was enough of a bigger bitch to stand you!  And me?  I _hated_ you.  Yes, I did," she said at Santana shaking her head once again, even more feeble than the last time.  "I fucking _despised_ you.  You were the closeted little bitch who kept on reminding me of everything that was _wrong_ with me, except – why was that, exactly?  What were _you_ so scared of?

"Your parents _loved_ you, they _supported_ you, and you were just oh-so fucking terrified.  What happened when they found out, again?  Your _grandma_ got pissed?  Oh, boo-fucking-hoo.  Do I need to remind you what happened when _I_ finally came out to my parents?  _I_ was the one living in fear of that, _I_ was the one who knew what would happen the second they found out, and you were scared of fucking _nothing_.  You were the whiny little bitch who thought she had it so bad, and I had to watch you mope and cry over _nothing_ , and I _hated_ you for that.

"And you know what, Santana?" she asked, grabbing Santana by the head with both of her hands, fingernails digging painfully into her scalp.  "You know what's _really_ funny?  It's that I hate you even more now than I _ever_ did back then.  Because back then I knew: I _knew_ that you were out to get me, I _knew_ that we weren't friends, and I _knew_ that we would throw each other under the bus at the first fucking chance we got.  But this time?  This time I thought, just for one fucking _second_ , that you would have my back.  That I could _trust_ you.  But of course I couldn't.  And the worst part?  You didn't even have the _nerve_ to tell me.  I had to learn from _Kurt_."

She laughed again, this time more of a sob.  "Fool me twice, right?  I went to you when I was scared and alone and wanted to _know_ , once and for all, if this thing inside me was real, if I really was gay after all, and what did you do?  You fucked me and pretended I was Brittany.  You _used_ me.  And then again, I came to you after I tried to _kill myself_ – _I_ came to _you_ – looking for someone who wouldn't _hate_ me, and then you turn around and—and—"

Quinn threw Santana's head back down to the floor, no longer capable of words.  She stood up, blood-stained fingernails running through her hair, and _screamed_ – an inarticulate sound of pure rage and misery.

Santana couldn't move, could barely think as she laid there next to the bed and curled up into a ball.  She could only watch as Quinn ran over to the door, unlocked it and threw it open, desperate to just _get away_ —

And everyone stood outside.

The pounding.  She realized now, there had been a pounding sound since the second the door was shut.  They had been pounding on the door for the whole time.

They had heard.

She saw the looks on their faces.  Kurt with his head in his hands, Brittany crying, Mercedes and Sam horrified, Puck wearing a face like he had been shot, and Rachel—

It was Rachel's face that did it.  It sent Quinn running, pushing through the crowd still frozen in shock.

Puck was the only one who could move, chasing after her.  The others stood completely still, the horror of what Quinn had revealed just now sinking into their faces.

And Rachel, wearing an expression that could only be described as heartbroken.

She hadn't passed out, that night.  She had remembered.  She had known.

But not everything.


	7. Into the Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to everybody who has left kudos for this story since the previous chapter was posted.

"Get in the car, Quinn," Puck pleaded once again as he drove alongside her.

She didn't respond, just kept walking down the sidewalk, eyes set forward but seeing nothing.  All she saw were memories.  Images of their faces as she had wrenched the door open.

An image that stood out more than the others.  An image of _her_ face.

_Shattered._

In some part of her brain that was still thinking— _could_ still think, she wished that she had a car.  She had never been comfortable driving one since her accident, so she tended to avoid it.  She would take public transport most of the time, or carpool when she had to.  Mainly, it was just the sense of being behind the wheel that she disliked.

Banal thoughts like that were all that she could consider at the moment.  They flowed in and out, flaring brightly and then flickering out just as quick.  She didn't mind.  Anything to distract her.

She didn't know how long she had been walking.  The sun, which had just been beginning to set when she had spoken with Kurt, now hung low in the horizon, stretching the shadows of houses across the road.  Her lungs burned and her legs felt like they were breaking apart; the latter a relic from her car wreck.  Back when she was on the Cheerios, she wouldn't have even broken a sweat, but her physique was now just one more thing that had been taken from her.

The thought served as reminder enough for her to check both ways before she crossed another street.  She rose one of her hands in front of her face and slowly uncurled it, relishing in the pain and stiffness of the movement after it having been tightly clenched into a fist for so long.  Another distraction.

Santana's blood was caked under her nails.  A reminder.  A fresher coat of her own blood had been reaped from her palms, covering the foreign fluid.  She watched as it dripped down her arm, staining one of the sleeves of her cardigan.  She wondered if it would wash out, or if there would forever be a rusty stain on the dark gray fabric.  A distraction now, but a possible future reminder.

Along the trail of blood, a scar.  Faded, but always there.  A reminder.

She stopped.  She heard Puck's brakes squeak in response.

He didn't say anything as she opened up the door and slid inside.  He just waited until she strapped her seatbelt in before driving her away.

Always away.

* * *

The moon watched her from outside the window of Puck's apartment, and she stared back, unblinking.

It was a cleaner home than she would have imagined, but not remarkably so. Small and homely, with various memorabilia scattered across the shelves and walls; not like the front he had borrowed from one of the women he had cleaned pools for and most likely had an affair with.

Puck had said four words to her since she had entered his car, upon their arrival here: "Do you need anything?"  She had held no answer, yet he had still waited for an hour, sitting next to her on the beaten-down couch of his living room before he had gone outside, presumably to answer the calls and texts which had bombarded his phone before he had turned it off.

The coagulated blood shone on her palms and one arm, slowly crumbling apart from the minute stretching of her skin as she flexed her fingers.  The movement was more habitual than anything, serving as yet another reminder: this time, of her days in a hospital bed after her accident.  She had laid there, stretching her fingers for hours at a time just to remember that she could at least do that.

Joe had helped her then.  That had been his job of course, but he had performed it well aside from a few inappropriate moments, all which she had vigorously encouraged as part of a desperate attempt to forget the speech she had been planning out moments before the side of her car was slammed into.

He had been a nice boy, Joe, and she remembered once again praying for God to fix her shortly thereafter; not in the physical sense, but to make Quinn able to love Joe like he deserved, like she _should_.  She had never prayed for anything but that, never wasted her time with God on anything but that, with a sole exception being shortly before she had taken her pregnancy test.

She reached up and pulled her cross out from under her shirt, over her head, flakes of blood rubbing off and staining the white fabric.  She cupped the golden cross in her hands, holding it like it was something precious instead of the useless trinket that had failed her time and time again.

She had worn this cross for every day of her life, for as long as she could remember.

She wondered if that fact would ever be worth anything.

She heard the door of the apartment open behind her, then shut just as softly.  Footsteps, then the groaning of springs as Puck sat down next to her.

"They're worried about you," he said.  "All of them."

She knew what he was saying, though the exact words lay unspoken.  _Even Santana, even after you attacked her, even after you tore her apart and set fire to the remains._

"The only one I called back was Brittany; thought she was the best bet, you know?  She was wondering if she should come over.  I said I'd see how you were doing and call her back, but she said not to bother asking you since you, uh, 'never want to let people help you.'  Figured I'd do it anyway, but..."  He trailed off, shrugging.

She swallowed back the knot in her throat.  "Tell—" she began, then coughed, trying to clear the hoarseness from her voice.  When she began again, her voice was quieter.  "Tell her I'm crying and yelling, and that you don't think it's a good idea."

She didn't have to look at him to know he was scrutinizing her, but eventually he got up and went back outside.

He returned a minute later, smiling the tiniest bit when he sat down.  "She said she knew you told me to lie to her, which means it's code orangey-purple and that she's coming over right away."

She felt the corners of her mouth twitch as well, despite everything.  "Does she know where we are?"

"Yep."

"How?"

"I told her."

She nodded, like she wasn't expecting anything different, and returned her attention to the cross in her hands.

He leaned back against the couch, smirking as a thought overtook him.  "So how long did it take you to know it wasn't my house?"

Her lips twitched again.  "Twenty seconds after I walked in.  No pictures."

He gave a low whistle.  "Twenty seconds," he muttered.  "Damn.  I knew I was missing something."

He didn't say anything else, didn't prompt any further, but she found the words spilling out anyway.  "I figured out how you got it when I saw the pool.  Did you sleep with her?" she asked.  There was no judgment in her tone, only a mild curiosity.

"Nah.  I mean, I flirted with her, but there was no cheating necessary."

"I'm impressed."

"Eh, I wouldn't be.  It wasn't for a lack of trying on her part, but let's just say there's a difference between _older_ women and _old_ women.  Puckster's still got some standards."

"I can't believe you're still calling yourself that."

"What can I say?  It makes the panties drop."

She couldn't help it anymore – she smirked.  Puck grinned like an idiot at the sight.

A knock on the door startled them both.

"That'll be Brittany, I guess," Puck said, getting to his feet.  He made his way over to the door, pausing to look through the peephole, and then opened it up.

"Hey—" he began, but Brittany was already walking past him.  She took one giant step over the back of the couch and plopped down next to Quinn, the springs groaning in response.

"Hey, Q," Brittany said, folding her arms around Quinn and hugging her, less than a second after Puck had let her in.

Quinn felt herself immediately relax into the hold.  Brittany had always been the best hugger.

"Oh right!  Hey, Puck," she added on, waving one of her hands at him from behind Quinn's back.

"'Sup," he said, not offended by her dismissal of him in the slightest.  He briefly checked outside before closing the door.  "Anybody know where you are?"

"Nope," she said, nose rubbing against Quinn's cheek as she shook her head.  "I know Quinn totes doesn't like surprises when she's sad, so I just talked until they all zoned out, and then I slipped out like a ninja.  I have a lot of practice doing that with Lord Tubbington."

"Right," Puck said, taking the comment about her cat in stride (a telltale sign of having known Brittany for quite some time).  "Do you, uh, need me to go or something...?"

"Yep."

Puck nodded, not at all thrown off by the fact that she had just asked him to leave his own home; he just turned back around and left, door clicking close behind him.

The two of them didn't say anything.  Quinn was content to let Brittany hold her, and Brittany knew that it wasn't yet time for words.  Eventually, but not quite then.  Right then there was only Quinn curled up on Brittany's lap, the taller girl's arms wrapped tightly around her.

The moon had risen above the window's view by the time Quinn spoke, her low croak of words tumbling through the quiet.  "Aren't you mad at me?"

"A little bit," Brittany replied easily, still hugging her.  "But I'm sad at you too."

Quinn smiled against Brittany's shoulder.  The other girl's way of speaking always had a way of slinking through Quinn's defenses no matter how upset she was.

"I'm sorry," Quinn said.

"I know you are.  That's why I'm only a little bit mad at you and Santy, 'cause you're both super sorry."

"You're mad at Santana?"

"A little bit.  She messed up too, by telling Kurt."

Quinn tensed up again at the reminder, but eventually sighed.  "Is she...  How is she?"

"She's totes sad, just like you.  It's really sad to see, so I kinda-really wanted to stay there with her, but I knew you were sad too, _and_ you only had Puck to make you less sad, so I knew you needed it more."

"You didn't have to—" she began, then stopped.  "Thanks, Britt."

"You're welcome."

If anything good had come from Quinn's reign on the Cheerios, it was this: her friendship with Brittany.  She just brought a simplicity which was sorely needed in Quinn's otherwise complicated life.  Quinn could always count on her to know what to do.

But in a way, it made Quinn feel guilty.

"Why do you keep doing this for me?" she muttered.  "What have I ever done to deserve this?"

Brittany laughed, loud and happy.  "Q, that's a super stupid question.  You don't have to do anything to deserve someone to help you.  But since you think like that about everything, and I know you won't be happy 'til I give you an answer, you deserve it for helping me find Mrs. Kerfuffle."

Quinn frowned.  "Your... sock puppet?"

Brittany nodded.

No further explanation was given.  In Brittany's mind, none was needed.

Quinn felt tears welt up in her eyes as she smiled, rubbing her head into the crook of Brittany's shoulder.  "I'm glad I found her, then."

"Me too.  Her wife and babies were super worried about her."


	8. Imagine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to everyone who has left kudos for and/or bookmarked this story since the previous chapter was posted.

Rachel stared blankly at the Kindle app on her phone. The screen would keep on shutting off, no doubt disillusioned with the possibility of her doing anything, only to be awoken again and again. Every time, she would still find the Kindle app sitting there primly, mocking her with the "NEW" tag on its corner.

There was also the Amazon app there, but the personal symbolism wasn't quite so heavy with that one, so she didn't pay it much mind.

She wondered what exactly was in Quinn's book that she didn't want Rachel to read. She said it was a very personal story to her. Personal how? What did it talk about?

She had a feeling she knew.

The backdoor slid open, Kurt shuffling inside. She glanced at him, sighed, and then returned her attention to her phone.

"Puck texted back," she told Kurt. He paused in his closing of the door. "He said that he's with her and will let us know when she's feeling better."

Kurt gave a small nod. He stood there awkwardly for a moment before walking over and sitting down next to Rachel on the couch.

The majority of people had scattered throughout the backyard, leaving the living room to Rachel alone. They were recovering, coping in their own ways, talking with their friends as they all tried to reconcile with what Quinn had revealed. Rachel was grateful for the space. It had given her time to think.

"I still can't believe it," she said quietly to Kurt. "I thought that her liking me was the whole thing, so I didn't ask or say anything to you guys... I thought it was  _cute_ , you know? That she didn't want to me know, that you and Santana were so scared of me knowing. I thought you guys were just overreacting, and that I could surprise her and be like... like... God, I don't even know."

She dropped her head into her hands, nose pressing up against the screen of her phone. "I should've known, I should've... asked you guys, or—or something. I just... I had no idea that... I never thought that she would have ever tried to..."

She couldn't help it anymore and released a small sob. Kurt's arms were fast to embrace her, holding her tight against him.

"Rach, I'm so sorry, honey," Kurt said. "It's my fault Quinn found out like she did. Santana was planning to tell her, I know she was, but..."

She shook her head. "It's not your fault. Quinn's too smart, it's no wonder she picked up on you knowing so quick. You didn't do anything wrong."

She wanted to add something on to the end there, something about how it wasn't  _Santana's_  fault either, but a part of Rachel did blame her. The same part was disgusted with how she had been treating Dani going by what Quinn had said, but another part of her was quietly digesting just how much not being with Brittany had affected Santana. Even with all the drunken nights, she couldn't have fathomed how deep it ran.

She looked over Kurt's shoulder out into the backyard. Santana was sitting in a chair on the patio, staring at the illuminated pool. An icepack had been laid petulantly on the table beside her, which served as no shock. What did surprise Rachel was that Santana was sitting out there alone.

"Where's Brittany?" she asked, head resting against Kurt's shoulder.

"She took off – I don't know where. She said something to Santana about having to go somewhere, and then she started talking about Lord Tubbington and my mind tuned everything after that out."

She frowned. That didn't sound very much like Brittany, to leave Santana there while she was hurting. Still, Brittany had always been the expert about what Santana needed, so Rachel supposed she would have to trust that Brittany was doing what she knew was best.

"What have you been doing in here with your phone all this time?" Kurt asked, pulling back and fishing a handkerchief out of one of his pockets.

She accepted the handkerchief with a small "thanks." "Quinn told me that she had written a book," she explained after having finished blowing her nose. "But she said that it was very personal to her and that she didn't want me to read it—"

"So you've been debating whether or not to read it," Kurt finished for her, smiling slightly.

She huffed, but her face quickly dropped again. "I know I shouldn't. She's already had far too many of her private affairs exposed against her will, and I told her that I wouldn't read it until she wanted me to. I'm not sure if it's helping or hurting me to imagine what she wrote, but it's all I can do. I just want to know what she's been going through. It feels like everybody does but me. You, Santana, apparently Brittany since she was the one helping Quinn during the memorial, and I'm sure Puck is now finding out all about it, but I don't know anything. It's altogether selfish, but I still want to  _know_. I don't know how much longer I can stand not knowing."

Her words were coming out faster now, her body starting to quiver. "I keep on imagining it: imagining her laying in a tub full of b-blood, or standing on a c-c-chair with a—with a noose around her—with her just—God, I can't stop imagining her  _face_  when she was doing it, can't stop imagining what she was  _thinking_ , how alone she must have been to even  _consider_  it—and I can't stop wondering if I could have done something, anything to—to—"

Kurt's arms were around her again, and this time her sobs didn't stop.

"Oh, sweetie," he whispered, his own tears starting to fall. "I can't say I know how Quinn's mind works, but if I had to guess I'd say that this is why she didn't want you to know. She knew you would blame yourself, because that's the kind of person you are. It's not your fault, Rach. What almost happened is completely on her, and she knows that, and she would want  _you_  to know that above everything else."

"But I have to  _know_! I have to know  _why_ —why would she do something like trying to—why would she do that? You have to tell me, Kurt," she begged, arms wrapped painfully around him. "She said—she said something about what she was doing on the day that she got the... the call about Finn dying. A-And something about coming out to her parents, and I guess—I mean, obviously they were too big of bigots to be supportive in the slightest to their own  _daughter_ , but I—I have to know, Kurt.  _Please_."

"I can't, Rachel," Kurt told her, sounding like the words were physically painful to him. "She has to be the one to tell you—"

"She tried by slitting her wrists."

Rachel nearly threw Kurt to the floor in her haste to spin around. Standing there in the doorway, Brittany held a faraway gaze.

"What—"

"She was laying in her bed, not the bathtub though," Brittany continued, her monotone voice cutting Rachel off. "I asked her roommate one day while I was staying with them, after Quinn said it was okay. She said it was okay for me to tell you this too, in case you were worried that she didn't say it was okay or something."

Rachel swallowed, her mouth suddenly more dry than she could ever remember it being. Images of Quinn assaulted her mind, of her lying alone on her bed with blood gushing out of her arms.

She tried to open her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Kurt seemed to know what question she wanted to ask, however.

"You went to go see Quinn?" he asked, standing up.

"Yep."

"How is she?" came another voice – Santana, standing in the frame of the door.

Brittany smiled at her. "She's doing better. She asked the same thing about you. She's super sorry about all the stuff she said. And also for hitting you."

Santana shook her head quickly, like the apology was unnecessary, but they could all see the tears that collected in her eyes.

"Anyway, she didn't want you guys to worry about her, so she asked me to come tell you how she's doing, 'cause she doesn't think she'd handle everything really well right now. Puck's keeping her company, in case you were worried about her trying to kill herself again—" Rachel made a sobbing noise at this, "—but that's stupid to worry about. She was in a super bad place when she tried to kill herself, like totes-super-sad-bad place, and she was really super drunk too. She wouldn't try anything like that ever again.

"But anyway, Quinn knew that Rachel would have a ton of questions," she continued, smiling at Rachel. "So she wanted me to tell you anything you want to know. So what do you want to know?"

Rachel stood perfectly still for a long time, simply staring at Brittany as she continued to indulge Rachel with a smile. Kurt and Santana stood off to the sides, both holding their breaths as they watched her.

It suddenly occurred to Rachel how much Quinn was trusting her, moments before she spoke.

"Everything," she said with complete certainty. "I want to know everything."

Brittany frowned. "But I don't know everything. Like how they make tofu, or why you're so short. I guess they could have something to do with each other, like maybe they took stuff from you to make tofu and that made you not grow, but—"

"About  _Quinn_!" Rachel screeched. "About what happened to her!"

" _Oh_ ," Brittany said, nodding. There was a knowing smile on her face, though. "Okay. Santy might need to help out a bit, but I think I can do that. You should sit down, though. It's a super long story."


	9. What Happened

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to everybody who has left kudos for and/or commented on this story since the previous chapter was posted.

The four of them were sitting in the living room: Kurt and Santana on either side of Rachel, and Brittany sitting across from them in an armchair, a focused expression on her face.  Or as close to focused one could get with it being Brittany.

Kurt knew what was coming.  He had heard it before, from Santana that night.  After they had put Rachel to bed, he had taken a minute to calm down from the shock and try to shake off the haze of drunkenness.  Once he finally was sure of what was happening and where he was, he took that as a sign that he was good enough to press Santana for more details.

He had found Santana crying on the couch.  At first, he had assumed she was back to thinking about Brittany, but at the sight of him the tears had only increased.  He had asked her what was wrong, to which Santana had gone on and on about how she wasn't supposed to have said anything about it to anyone.

In his haze, his response had simply been to ask, "Why not?"

And maybe it had been desperation for someone to confess everything to, for someone to carry the burden of knowing with her, but it had not taken her very long to start the same explanation that Brittany was now telling Rachel.

* * *

Yale had been... interesting for Quinn.

In a way, it was certainly easier: being free from Lima and her parents and all the memories that came with them.  She could reinvent herself for the umpteenth time and there would be no one there any the wiser; they would only know her exactly as she wanted them to know her.

The problem was, she was no longer sure how she wanted people to know her.  It had taken her nearly four years at McKinley High to finally be comfortable being relatively close to her actual self.  Now she was back in a new environment, and as much progress as she had made thanks to Glee club and the others, she was still desperate to get a good start on her college life.

So she created yet another new Quinn: the friendly, college Quinn.  That was what she wanted out of those years: friends.  She didn't want to be alone at the bottom like Lucy, but she also didn't want to be alone at the top like Quinn Fabray.  So she took on another mask.  A lighter one, one that showed more glimpses of the girl underneath than others, but a mask nonetheless.

It was a mask that served her well.  Until she was invited to a party and kissed by a random girl.  And all the thoughts and feelings she had locked away came pouring out.

There was no Lima to help her hold them back.  No judgment from her parents to remind her why it was so wrong.  There was nothing to let her dismiss it as she had before.

So she got desperate.  Her psychology teacher was the type of man ready to take advantage of that, and she was fast to let him when he tried.  He was perfect: a forbidden man that she could flaunt to Santana, the others, and herself to show how just straight she was.  But even Quinn had too much self-respect to let that drag on for too long.

(There was a note by Brittany at that point that Quinn had since gotten him fired, much to everybody's visible vindication.)

When it came time for the Schuester wedding and Quinn returned to Lima, she was determined to ignore it all again.  Her sexuality, her feelings; they were all to be locked away.  But she had pushed too far to push it all back once again.  She got drunk, got even more desperate, and went to an equally drunk Santana.

And after that...  Well, after that, there wasn't much room to do anything but accept the truth: that she was gay, and that there was a reason she had gone to Santana beyond the mutual desperation.  It was the same reason Santana had gone to her.  They both wanted somebody else.

And Quinn was finally ready to accept who that somebody else was, after years of denial.  And she decided to do something about it.

She was going to win the heart of Rachel Berry.

But even in the joy of finally realizing what her heart wanted, there was still dread.  She knew that there was one major roadblock in that venture, no matter what the current status between the two of them might have been.

Finn.

It was the insecure bit of Quinn, the part that had controlled so much of her life, which made her positive that whatever relationship she and Rachel would always be temporary so long as Finn was still an option.  That complete absence of self-esteem that made her sure that she would never stand up to him in Rachel's eyes.

It was the lonely bit of Quinn that still so desperately wanted Rachel, even then; that needed Rachel now that Quinn had finally realized her feelings for her.

And it was that bit of Quinn from high school that allowed her to plan.  That cold bitch that had reigned the halls that allowed her to plan out the ways to show Rachel that she and Finn just weren't meant to be together, that they weren't good for each other.  That darkness that let her plan to break them up _permanently_ , to poison them against each other in just the right way where both would finally give up on being together, and Quinn could finally try to woo her without the distraction of Finn.

She was in the middle of planning this systematic destruction of their remaining romantic prospects together when she received a phone call.  A phone call which solemnly informed her of the passing of Finn Hudson.

When she hung up the phone, she was left staring down at the notepad in her hands.  On its pages, it listed all the avenues to breaking apart Rachel and Finn's love.

She tore the entire notepad to shreds.

She silently attended the funeral with the others, and there she watched Rachel's grief.  She had soaked it in, reminding herself every second that that love was what she had been plotting to ruin.

She returned to New Haven the second the ceremony was over, not having spoken to a single soul.  When she returned, she locked herself in her room and stayed closed off to the world.  It had lasted for a week, until her mother called and asked why she hadn't come visit while she was in town.

She had erupted.  The self-loathing and misery had to have an outlet.  She finally unleashed the venom on her parents that she had wielded every day in high school.  Everything had poured out, how much she hated both of them, her father for how he had treated her for the duration of her life, culminating in kicking her out of the house, and her mother for standing by and letting it happen, and then bringing him back in.

She told them that she was done.  That she wasn't going to pretend anymore.  So she told them she was gay, that she despised both of them, and that she would be glad to never see them again.

Shortly after, she received notice that her tuition for Yale was no longer being paid for by her parents, and that she had been disowned.

That night, she got drunk.  Very drunk.  Her roommate was out, so she was all alone.  She wandered into the kitchen, sobbing, necking a bottle of beer.

And she saw a knife, sitting out on the counter.

And she was so alone.

So tired.

So cruel.

So undeserving of life.

So alone.

So she took the knife.

(Brittany took one look at Rachel's face and the sobbing mess there before skipping forward.)

That was the sight Quinn's roommate came back to: of Quinn, lying on the bloodied sheets, half-conscious but still crying.  Her roommate called 911 first thing, and soon the dorm was flooded by medical personnel.

Quinn had been too drunk to really be thorough with the attempt, so the damage was stitched up easily enough before they took her to the hospital.  Then the roommate took Quinn's cellphone and dialed the first contact on the list: Brittany.

Brittany flew over that night.

When Quinn first saw Brittany entering the hospital room, she had burst into tears.  It had lasted over an hour, filled with unintelligible apologies and statements from Quinn, about how awful she was, about how she didn't deserve her help, about she didn't deserve anybody.

And Brittany held her tight the entire time.

Quinn eventually started to calm down.  She told Brittany what had happened, told her that her life was over.  She had nothing, nobody, and she deserved it as far as she was concerned.

That was the point when Brittany decided she was going to help Quinn, no matter what.

(Brittany didn't phrase it like that, of course.  Only glazed over those details like it was the least she could do for Quinn.  It was one of those moments that struck Kurt with just how innocent she was.)

First, Brittany called her parents and asked them for help.  It came as no surprise to Kurt that the people who had raised such a wonderful girl as Brittany readily helped out Quinn by paying for her medical bills and coming up with a long list of scholarships for Quinn's college, in addition to flat-out supplying their own money to help pay, which Quinn had tried her best to refuse.  They even added Quinn to their insurance after discovering that her parents had taken her off their plan.

None of this really addressed the root problem however.  As great as Brittany's family was, she'd barely started to know them.  She was still alone, still missing a family, and still drowning in how much she hated herself.  Though she told Brittany (and Brittany fully believed) that she wouldn't try to kill herself again, she was still a shadow.

So Brittany went further, and she called up Quinn's sister: Francine.

Frannie showed up shortly thereafter.  Brittany had left them alone after determining that Quinn's older sister would be "good" (Brittany's words), and when Brittany had returned a few hours later, they were both smiling.  Sobbing uncontrollably, but smiling.

(Her sister, they learned, had never been informed by their parents of anything that had happened to Quinn during her high school years.  Quinn herself had never told her due to not wanting to plague her older sister with her problems after she had finally gotten free of their home and found happiness.  Frannie had already done so much for her, she said, and she didn't want to make her do any more.)

(Brittany and Frannie had both bopped her on the head for that.)

It got a little better after that.  Between Brittany's parents, Frannie and her husband, and all the scholarships they had scrounged up, Quinn's future was back on track.  But the truly important thing was that Quinn finally had a family.

Eventually however, Brittany and Frannie both had to leave, and Quinn was alone again.  Quinn's roommate was nice and sympathetic to her situation, but they weren't exactly the closest of friends.

(Santana took up this part of the story.)

Quinn was so scared of being alone again, but as much as Brittany and Frannie had tried to get her over her inability to ask for genuine help, she still had the mindset that such was unduly troubling her friends, and she couldn't bring herself to ask for more from them.

And there was something else she needed.  A test, or perhaps a trial.  Neither Brittany nor Frannie would ever tell Quinn how terrible she was for what she had been planning, especially not when they had both come on to the scene after her suicide attempt and had seen how much she was tearing herself up about it.  She needed someone who would tell her like it was.  She had to know if someone else would think of her as being the same vile creature that she thought of herself as.

So she called Santana.  She asked her to come up to New Haven over the weekend, but not tell either Rachel or Kurt where she was going.  Santana, while surprised by the request due to the lack of contact they had had recently, had agreed.  She had made some excuse to her roommates, hijacked Rachel's metro pass, and headed over to New Haven.

It had been awkward from the get-go.  The last time they had really talked had been back at the wedding, and that really hadn't involved much talking.  It remained awkward until Santana caught sight of the scar on Quinn's wrist.  Then it turned into something else.

Santana had demanded to know what had happened.  Quinn complied, but under one condition: that Santana would tell absolutely no one, ever.  Especially not Rachel.  And Quinn needed insurance from Santana, a way to make sure that she could never tell without certain retaliation.

So Santana told her about Dani.  About how she felt about her.  About how she didn't feel what she had felt for Brittany, but she still pretended.  About how she pretended about a lot of things.

Quinn had told her everything after that.

Santana had listened in horror.  She watched as Quinn broke down into a sobbing mess and asked Santana what was so wrong with her: how was it that she could do all these horrible things.

And that was one thing Santana knew the answer to.  She knew, because it was the same answer for her.

They did it because they were scared.

But, Santana told Quinn, that didn't mean that Quinn was an awful person.  And even if she had been, even if they had both been, they could still be better then.

That had been enough for Quinn.

In the aftermath, as Santana was leaving, Quinn had repeated to her one thing: Rachel was never to know how Quinn felt about her.  Ever.  She wasn't to be made aware of anything relating to Quinn possibly being interested, not even to the point of her knowing about Quinn's sexuality.  Them together?  It could never happen as far as Quinn was concerned.

Rachel deserved better.  She deserved the person she loved, but she couldn't have him anymore.  And Quinn had been going to do her best to destroy that for her, before it had been taken away.

As far as Quinn saw it, she didn't deserve to benefit from that.

It got better for Quinn after that, as Brittany described.  Quinn had made up her mind about everything and resolved to move on from it.  Brittany visited often, in addition to Frannie and her family (including her new son, who Quinn doted on through the pain in her chest).  Quinn even started calling Puck, where they would usually talk about Beth.  She told him about her sexuality, and he hadn't seemed at all surprised or upset (as Quinn had told Brittany), but she hadn't told him anything else about what had happened.

In a way, they were all family to Quinn: a family which loved and supported her for who she was.  She had her sister back, but she also had Brittany, who brought along her own family for Quinn, and who were actually in the middle of trying to officially adopt her.  In addition, she knew that the bond she shared with Puck (though both knew as being not at all romantic) was always going to be there, and she started to speak to him more and more.

And before she knew it, she wasn't alone anymore.

One time Brittany visited to discover that Quinn was growing her roots out.  The next time she found her wearing glasses.  Brittany had never asked why, but Quinn had told her one day that she wanted to be free of everything that she used to be, that she had forced herself into.  Brittany hadn't given her opinion, besides telling Quinn that she should do whatever she wanted to.

And when Puck sent her the invitation to come to his shipping-out party, Quinn had finally felt comfortable enough with herself again to agree.  She and Brittany met at the airport, got a ride from Mercedes, who was in shock from Quinn's changes, and showed up to the house, ready for a quiet get-together with all the people she used to know.

Brittany laughed.  "It's kinda funny how things turned out, isn't it?"


	10. Remission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to everyone who has left kudos for and/or commented on this story since the previous chapter was posted.

Another hour was gone, and Santana was still sitting by herself next to the pool.  The majority of the other Glee-clubbers eventually had to leave and go on their ways, after Brittany had assured them all that Quinn was fine and that she just needed some time.  A few still remained: Sam, Mercedes, Joe, and Artie – those closest to Quinn, who wanted to wait for her to come back to the house as they assumed she would.  But they all gave Santana the distance she wanted.

It hurt Santana every time Brittany would have to give another person the cliff-notes version of what had happened to Quinn so that they wouldn't worry.  Quinn had apparently given Brittany permission, but it was permission that never would have had to have been given if not for Santana.  Quinn had so desperately not wanted anyone to know, and now they all knew because of Santana.  Because she had set this in motion.

She didn't want Rachel or Kurt around when the very sight of them served to remind her of everything she had done wrong.  She didn't even want Brittany around her, not when she was like this.  She wouldn't put Brittany through her misery any more than she already had in their lives.  So far, they had all respected that.

She had known that it would be Brittany who would come to her first.

She sat down next to Santana without spectacle, stretched her legs out on the long chair, and then watched the movement of the water with her.  She didn't say a single word, but the hand closest to Santana dangled off the side of the chair.  It was a gesture expecting nothing, but offering so much.

One that Santana couldn't take.  Not then.

So she spoke instead, not looking at the girl beside her.  "How's MIT?"

Brittany shrugged.  "I don't like it," she said.  "I don't like studying and stuff.  I want to be dancing, and I don't think that MIT is gonna help me with that."

"I'm sorry," Santana said.

"I know you are.  Don't be, though.  All that stuff sucks, but it's not what sucks the most."

Santana couldn't help it anymore and turned towards Brittany, whose blue eyes met her.  "What is it, then?"

"You're not there," Brittany said, smiling sadly.  "But you're here now, so it's okay."

Santana blinked back the onset of tears, eyelids shuttering wildly, but she couldn't stop it.  She couldn't stop the sobbing, either.

When Brittany's arms wrapped around her, it was all she could do to hug her back just as tight.  To hold on, and never let go.

And she knew that she would take however much Brittany could give her.  And that she always would.

* * *

Brittany got a text eventually, from Quinn.  Afterward, she told all who still remained that Quinn was going to stay over where she was for the night (the location she still refused to tell any of them), and that everyone should go home.  Quinn would come see each of them tomorrow.

Out of the three of them, only Kurt was capable of much at the moment.  He guided Rachel and Santana to the car, Brittany giving Santana another hug goodbye (the word tore at Santana's heart, even if she knew she would see her again in the morning), and then they were off to the hotel they had booked at.

Santana and Rachel wandered behind as Kurt led them to their rooms, the second, connecting one having been an addition only made as they arrived at the front-desk.  Rachel was shepherded into her room, her red eyes still unfocused as she laid down on the bed and tugged the scratchy blankets up around her.

Kurt lacked his usual aplomb as he emptied his travel case of all the necessary ointments and creams.  It was only what Santana knew to be halfway through his nightly routine that he shut the lights off and crawled into bed.

Santana stared up at the popcorn ceiling for an hour before slinking out, down to the hotel lobby with her phone in hand.

The first call was answered on the third ring, with a sleepy yet still affectionate greeting.

Santana couldn't speak for a minute, but when she did it was only one word.  Only her name.  "Dani..."

It was enough to make her understand.

Another hour had passed before she could finally make the second call.  It was answered on the first ring, with a gentle "hi."

"I broke up with Dani," Santana whispered.

There was silence on the other end of the line, only a moment of it, before a reply came through.

"There's a lot of dancing jobs in New York."

It was enough to close the hole that had been rotting out her heart.

There wasn't the need for any more words after that.  Only quiet goodbyes, and then Santana held the phone out in front of her and watched the screen.  The call lasted another two minutes before Santana spoke, the words barely loud enough to reach the phone.  "I love you."

It was distant, but she heard it whispered back through the speaker before the call was ended.

* * *

It was around 6 a.m. when Quinn walked through the front doors of the hotel.  Santana still sat there alone at one of the tables, her eyes red from a combination of exhaustion and tears, one side of her face blotched blue and purple, and still dressed in the same shirt and skinny jeans from yesterday.  Quinn, by contrast, was wearing completely different clothes: a simple t-shirt with Levi jeans.  Her cardigan was nowhere to be seen, and a fresh pair of bandages were wrapped around both of her hands, which were tightly clenching her Kindle.

Quinn spotted her quickly enough.  Santana watched as she walked over with slow, hesitant steps and took a seat at the table with her.  They held each other's gaze, and in them each they saw the apology.  They saw how sorry they both were for everything they had done to the other.  Neither put their apologies into words, but it was enough for both; maybe it was already too much.

There was only one thing that Santana needed to say.  Needed to know.  "I thought we were friends."

Quinn flinched, and whatever hope Santana had been holding on to slowly crumbled against Quinn's solemn expression.  Santana inhaled deeply and blinked back her tears.  She had been crying so much on this trip.  It wasn't like her.

When Quinn spoke, it was with a quiet air of remorse.  "I wish we had been."

There was another question now that Santana wanted to ask; more of a request, really.  But she knew two things that stopped her: what Quinn's answer would be, and that this new Quinn would never give her that answer.  She would lie to her and say 'yes' because she wouldn't be able to deny Santana and crush her any further.  It was a meaningless attempt at virtue.  Santana was already crushed.

So she didn't ask.  She just wiped away her tears and said in a shaky voice, "I wish so too."

Quinn smiled at her, and it was a sight so heartbreaking that Santana almost made her request; almost convinced herself that Quinn would mean it when she agreed.  But she knew that she was lying to herself.  So it wasn't until several minutes had passed that she whispered, "Can we try to be?"

But it was too late, and Quinn was already gone.  The doors of the elevator had closed behind her, and Santana was left sitting there alone.

She sat there until she saw familiar blue eyes filled with love, accompanied by a hand which pulled her to her feet and arms which held her again – which would always hold her.  They all belonged to the girl Santana would never part from again.  The girl who, after their first phone call ever, had waited on the line with Santana for two minutes after saying goodbye, just because both of them wanted to be with the other for however much longer they could have.  She was reminded then that she wasn't alone.  She would never be alone again.

But she was still missing one more person than she would have liked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: **What I Deserve**  
>  ETA: **Friday, 24**


	11. What I Deserve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to everybody who has left kudos for this story since the previous chapter was posted.

Quinn stared at the door in front of her for half-an-hour before it opened.  It was Kurt, looking ever so slightly less immaculate than his norm as he shuffled out of the room.  His eyes widened briefly when he saw her, then narrowed, before finally resting in so neutral a fashion it had to be fake.

"I'm sorry," Quinn said before he could open his mouth.  "For how I acted towards you when I... found out."

That seemed to throw him off-guard, making his eyes soften.  He sighed and pointed towards the door beside the one he had just come out through.  "She's in there," he said.  "They're connected, so you can go through that way if you want.  Assuming she hasn't locked it."

He glanced at the Kindle in her tight grasp, seeming to debate with himself for a moment, then nodded and took off down the hallway, pointedly leaving the door to his room open.

Still, Quinn didn't move.  She stood there, staring at the open doorway, and wondered which of the many personas she had constructed over the years had given her this hesitation.  No, she knew better than that.  This fear had always been there.  It had always been a part of her: the most defining part of her.  Everything she has done has always been motivated by fear.  Fear of being ostracized and returning to that terrifying, lonely place in middle-school.  Fear of not living up to her parent's expectations and getting her sister in trouble because she was "coddling" Quinn.

Fear of being exposed for who she was.  Fear of not knowing who she was.  Fear of there being so many layers of lies that no light could pierce through them, leaving her shriveled up and dead behind them all.

Kurt's footsteps came to a slow halt on the carpeted floor.  She turned, tearing her eyes away from the terror of that open door, and saw him looking at her with what she could almost call understanding.

"I'd tell you to be gentle with her," he said, smiling just the barest bit, "but I don't need to, do I?  Not with you.  Not now."

It's the bit of trust, of confidence that she won't fuck everything up for once in her life, that enabled her to walk into the room and close the door behind her.

She knew he was wrong, that his faith was misplaced, but it was enough to convince herself otherwise for the moment.

* * *

It's one of those moments that she'll look back on years later and cringe when remembering, but she watched Rachel sleep for a while.  It will be better than many of her other memories, though; better than all the things she remembers that make her want to cry, or lash out, or bury her head in the sand.  Too many of those memories involve Rachel and how Quinn acted towards her.  It will be better to have one where she will only be embarrassed when she thinks about it.

It won't be a happy memory, however.  Rachel's sleep was fitful and no doubt born only of exhaustion, the result of staring up at a ceiling for hours until the dreams could no longer be fought off.  Rachel was sleeping like how Quinn is used to, and Quinn hated seeing the small girl so terrified and lost.  She imagined that Rachel slept like an angel most nights: beautiful and serene.  Not like how she was then.

It's the whimper Rachel released that broke Quinn's resolve: it forced her to reach a hand out and shake Rachel's shoulder, call her name.  Anything to pull her out of the nightmares Quinn had trapped her in.  Rachel's eyes blinked open, and Quinn saw the tears there and felt her fear rise up once again, ugly and consuming, but there was a hand wrapped around her wrist before she could surrender to it.  The grip was unyielding, but gentle, and the still-glistening eyes watched her like she could break at any moment.

It was funny, in some horrible way, because Quinn was already broken.  She had been ripped and crushed and burnt to ashes, but she was pulling herself back together, slow though it might be.  She was not reconstructing the picture she once was, however; that painting had been ugly, created in harsh strokes by too many hands that were not her own.  Instead, she was grinding the remains down into new paint, and she was carefully forging a brand new creation; one made by her hand and hers alone.

So instead of letting that fear reign over her once again, she held out the Kindle in her other hand.  Rachel's eyes flickered to it and widened, and then they were back on Quinn, looking for permission when they both knew no more is needed.  But Quinn indulged her, one last time, and nodded all the same.  It was enough for Rachel, making her sit up and gingerly, reverently take the device from Quinn, her one hand remaining closed around Quinn's wrist the entire time.  She was scared too, Quinn realized, and it was one more regret for her that she had put that fear there.  She doubted it was the only one she had ever instilled in Rachel.

The story was titled _A Dragon & a Princess_, and Quinn knew that it would make Rachel cry, and that there would be even more of her tears owed to Quinn.  It was a sad story, yes, but that was not why Rachel would cry.  Rachel would cry because it was Quinn that had written it, and it was Quinn's self-loathing and regret that filled those words.  They are words that had poured out of her one night, fervently stamped on to the screen of her laptop, and it was only on the next day, after the story was written out in the red haze that consumed her entire night, that she had realized what those words truly meant to her.

It was the story of a dragon, vile and cruel and crushingly alone, who kidnapped a princess to take to its tower.  It was the story of a princess, so deeply and overwhelmingly in love with her prince and so desperate to be reunited with him, and yet who still found it in herself to take pity on the disgusting beast and attempt to befriend it.  It was the story of an angry and hateful creature who was jealous of the prince and tried to poison the princess against her true love, so that then the princess would have no reason to leave and thus would have stayed with the dragon in its tower, who then wouldn't have been quite so alone.  It was the story of a gallant and virtuous prince who came and slew the dragon and rescued the princess, and who then married her and united their kingdoms in prosperity.  It was the story of a young and innocent girl who, even after everything, still mourned the beast that had done her so much wrong.

It was the story of a dragon who died, as it deserved, but was happy because it knew that at least one person would mourn it, and that that person would be happy because the dragon had failed, and because she deserved to be.

Rachel threw the Kindle against a wall when she was done reading it.  The screen cracked, jagged lines scarred across it, and all Quinn thought was that it was now one more thing that was broken.  And yet Rachel's hand still grasped her; harder, less gentle, but still just as tenacious, and never cruel.

"You don't get to decide for me," Rachel said, very quietly.  "You don't get to stop me."

"But you don't get to decide for me, either," Quinn replied.  The words were not cruel, but rather sad.  Resigned.  A prison she had built for herself and fully intended to live the rest of her days in.

"Don't do this," she begged, and Quinn hated herself even more for making Rachel resort to this, but she knew that she could not give Rachel what she asked.  She would never be able to allow herself.  "This can't be the end."

"There was never a beginning, Rachel," Quinn said as she gently pried Rachel's grip off of her.  "And there's not going to be."

Rachel was crying quietly when Quinn got up and went to walk out of the room, and Quinn considered it fitting that that would be her last memory of her.

But then Rachel spoke.  "I'll wait for you," she said, and Quinn stopped.

"No," Quinn said, because that could not be allowed.  Because she couldn't let Rachel doom herself any further than the world had already.

But Rachel's tears had stopped, and she had that gleam in her eyes—that determination that Quinn had always admired, and always known to be unstoppable.  "I will.  I won't see anyone else, I won't go on any dates, nothing.  I'll never love anyone else until I get the chance to love you."

"Rachel, you can't do this.  You can't force me to—"

"And you can't force yourself not to," Rachel said, and it was amazing how a glare could simultaneously be intimidating and loving – and even that word was painful to her when she knew that she didn't deserve it, that it should have been directed at someone else.  "I'll wait for you, however long it takes.  Now isn't the time to start underestimating me, Quinn."

No.  No, it was not.  Because that was the one thing Quinn had always remembered: to never underestimate Rachel Barbra Berry when she put her mind to something.  But Quinn still had to fight, in any way that she could.  "It won't work, Rachel.  I'm selfish—"

"So am I," Rachel interjected.

"—and I won't be able to handle it.  You know I won't.  It'll eat away at me, always knowing that I'm the substitute, that I was only runner-up.  You have no idea how painful it'll be for me to know that you only gave me a chance because your first choice is... gone."

Rachel stared at Quinn so incredulously that Quinn wondered what incredibly obvious fact she had missed.  The stare continued for over a minute, until Quinn began to feel like a student on the eve of a reproach from her teacher, before Rachel said a single word: "Gardenias."

Quinn frowned for the briefest moment before everything crashed into place with such clarity that it was blinding.  Gardenias.  Secret love.  Her corsage.  A flower so lovely that Finn never would have thought to have given it to her, because they were Quinn and Finn, not Rachel and Finn.  "Y-You?" she breathed.  "You told him to...?"

"I did."

"Why?" Quinn asked.  There were cracks in the walls she had so painstakingly built, and they were spreading with every word out of Rachel's mouth, but they were walls she knew were necessary, and she was desperate to pause their destruction for as long as she could manage.

The respite was short-lived, because there was no hesitation when Rachel spoke.  "Because I was in love with you."

Quinn's walls all collapsed in that single moment.  It was simultaneously so beautiful and so terrifying that she wondered how she was still standing.

"I was in love with Finn," Rachel continued, "but there was always a part of me that loved you.  A part of me that wondered.  So it's not because he's gone that I'm saying we should try.  It's not because I'm desperate or because you're second-best.  It's because I've always wanted to try and love you, the same as I tried and succeeded with loving Finn.  I just never knew it was an option."

Rachel got up off the bed, and Quinn found herself unable to do anything but watch as Rachel walked up in front of her and looked straight into her eyes.  "So let's try," Rachel said.  "Because we both deserve to, Quinn.  We both owe ourselves the chance."

Rachel was looking up at her with such determined eyes, but they were also vulnerable.  Hopeful.  It was how Quinn finally realized that Rachel meant every word of what she said.

So she said "okay," and when Rachel leaned up and kissed her, Quinn wondered if it might be time to stop feeling so scared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: **A Good Day**  
>  ETA: **Monday, January 27**


	12. A Good Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to everybody who has left kudos for this story since the previous chapter was posted.

The two of them were lying together on the couch of the apartment one day when Rachel's mind decided to wander.

"Do you ever wonder about the future?" Rachel asked the curled-up form on her lap.

Quinn forced one eye open, a wariness there as she looked up at Rachel. "Sometimes," she said.

Rachel didn't pry any further, and she saw the gratitude in Quinn's eyes when she realized this. She would let Quinn keep this to herself, as much as she could. It had been Rachel's only stipulation when they realized that things were serious between the two of them, after months and months of commuting back and forth between NYC and New Haven – that Rachel would not be the one to propose. Quinn would have to be the one to make that step after everything that Rachel had done to get and keep them together. Quinn had accepted this, though it had admittedly caused her to falter, and that was enough for Rachel.

Content with having finished that line of thought for the time being, her mind diverted to other subjects. The new subject is very closely related, however: memories of the Lopez-Pierce wedding. It had been her first foray into being a maid of honor, a role which, while she had always wondered about, she never expected to be at the side of Santana Lopez. She also never expected to look across the aisle and see her girlfriend as the other maid of honor, her for Santana's imminent wife.

She remembers the blinding smiles on both Santana and Brittany's faces, and she wonders how her own smile on her own day will look in comparison.

The ceremony had been surprisingly down-to-Earth considering that Brittany was one of the brides, but it had worked beautifully. There had been nothing to distract from the love that stood at display. Afterward, Rachel and Quinn had given their speeches, and Quinn had gifted Santana with a hug while they both shared sad smiles. They weren't friends, and there was too much hurt and too many bad memories for them to ever be, but they were friendly acquaintances, and that was more than they had ever really been before.

Dani had come, at the request of both Santana and Brittany, and it had been slightly awkward, but it had also been good for everyone to see her again, and for them to meet her new girlfriend. She had quit her job at the diner by the time they had all come back, much to the distraught of everyone involved. Santana had tracked her down shortly after their return to NYC, and when she had come back to the apartment, red-eyed and all, she had told them what Dani had said to her: that it would just be too painful for both of them to continue working there, that they shouldn't worry because she had already found another job, that she always knew this was going to happen and that it was okay, and that her leaving meant that there was now an open waitressing position at the diner if Santana knew anybody in need of some work.

It was that last bit that had finally made Santana cry.

Still, it had been good for all of them to see her again. Brittany had quickly become best friends with Dani, and Rachel and Kurt both were happy to be reunited with her. Quinn and all of their other Glee friends at the wedding had grown to like her as well.

The night had ended with Brittany hurling the bouquet like a football and managing to hit both Kurt and Blaine in their faces with it, which was about as subtle a signal any of them could manage at that point. All-in-all, it was the most fun Rachel had ever had at a wedding.

"What's the matter?" Quinn asked, because she could still read everyone as fast as she could the dozens of books that had migrated over to the apartment, even when only able to feel their body tensing.

Rachel debated for a moment whether or not to say anything at all, but she eventually said, "I'm thinking about my wedding with Finn."

The way Quinn's body tensed and then suddenly collapsed was one of the most heartbreaking things Rachel had ever seen, but she refused to let Quinn go when she tries to move, keeping her arms wrapped tightly around Quinn and pulling her body closer. "Stop," she said, voice as gentle as it was firm. "I was just thinking about how Santana and Brittany's wedding was more fun than my own."

"Because you didn't get married," Quinn said. "Because I got into a car crash—"

"No, that's not why. Would you stop and listen to me for one second, please?" she asked. Quinn's body was still limp, but it wasn't as bad as it would have been back when they were starting out. Rachel had never thought that she could hate anyone, but she loathed Quinn's parents every time she saw just how much they had done to their poor daughter, and she hated them even more when she joined Quinn at therapy and listened to her talk about them.

It was fitting that Frannie has tossed aside her last name without a care and was now happily known as Mrs. Thompson, and that Quinn now introduced herself as Lucy Pierce, Brittany's family having officially adopted her around a year ago. It was what Russell and Judy deserved; more importantly, it was what Quinn and Frannie deserved: to be finally free of their parents in every way possible.

When Rachel spoke, it was with that at the front of her mind: just how much Quinn deserved after everything she had gone through. "My wedding with Finn was never fun at any point. Not the engagement, not the planning. Everyone was always telling me that it was wrong, and that I shouldn't do it. They all said I was making a mistake, you included," she said, pinning Quinn with a steady gaze that made her mouth snap back shut. "And you were all absolutely right: it was a mistake. It was too soon, and it wasn't trying to achieve anything on its own. It was me giving up, and I'm glad I didn't go through with it."

She sighed and rested her chin atop Quinn's head. "What was that thing you mentioned in the last therapy session? You said you were planning out a speech when on the way to my wedding, right before you got in your car accident. What was it?" she asked, knowing Quinn would indulge her the answer, because Quinn would always indulge her.

She did, however grudgingly the words came out. "I was going to... to march up into your room dressing and tell you what a mistake you were making, and that you didn't have to do that, that when someone proposes you aren't obligated to accept, and that you didn't have to let go of your dreams to be happy," she mumbled against Rachel's chest. "I was going to ask you to break-up with Finn, because there were other people that loved you, and you were hurting them by giving up on everything you had ever aspired to, when they knew that you could make it. People like me. But it doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does," Rachel said, but Quinn shook her head.

"It might have been a mistake then, but maybe you two still would have gotten married someday. When you were both ready."

"Maybe," Rachel conceded. "Maybe one day we would have gotten married, when it was the right time. But maybe I would have married you, anyway. Maybe one day we would have tried, and I would have discovered just how much I could love you. And maybe we would have gotten married, and Finn would have been there with all of our friends, and he would be happy for us like the rest of them.

"But I'm sick and tired of that word: 'maybe.' Because I don't know what would have happened of happened. But this is what I do know," she said, taking hold of Quinn's face and lifting her up so she could stare into those hazel eyes she loved, only magnified by the glasses Quinn wore. "You and I are going to get married, and we are going to invite each and every friend we have. I am going to have Santana as my maid of honor, and Kurt as my best man because I absolutely refuse not to have the both of them up there with me, and you're going to have Brittany as your maid of honor and Puck as your best man, with Mercedes as your bridesmaid. And we are going to get married, and we are going to go on a honeymoon to some gaudy place where we'll frolic in the sun and make love under the moon, and then we are going to come home and spend the rest of our lives together, and you are finally going to write a sequel to that horrible story, and in that story the dragon will come back to life as a beautiful maiden and she and the princess will live happily ever after. Understood!?"

Quinn gaped at her. "Will you marry me?"

"Yes, of course I will!" Rachel huffed. "That was the inference, was it not?"

"No, I mean—"

"I am fully aware of what you mean, Lucille Pierce. I'm saying 'yes.' Do you have a ring?"

"It's, uh, in my travel bag," Quinn replied, still in a daze.

"Well then, go get it, and I will put my exemplary acting skills to work and pretend to have no idea as to what is about to happen."

But Quinn didn't move. She stared at Rachel as a smile slowly spread across her face, growing until the point where it was blinding with how much joy it radiated. She jumped up off the coach and planted a kiss on Rachel's lips, still beaming. "I'll go get it," she said before dashing off to the bedroom.

Rachel hummed and closed her eyes, preparing herself for the role. She would be ecstatic: jumping for joy, probably crying a little, hugging Quinn tight and kissing her, so happy to be getting married to the girl she loved—

Her eyes snapped open.

It was within seconds that she arrived in the room they shared. Quinn was rifling through her bag, but she looked up at the sound of Rachel running into the room. She didn't have a chance to say anything before Rachel jumped into her arms, squealing, "Oh my God, we're getting married!"

And her fiancé burst out laughing.

* * *

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Story: **There Was a Soul Here**  
>  Available Now: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1162292


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